Online discussion on Mario Vargas Llosa's Interview

Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian novelist was awarded the noble prize for literature in 2010. His most recent novel is “The Neighborhood”. Here I try to point out some ideas which I like the most from his interview for the worldpost by Michael Skafidas, a journalist and professor of comparative literature at City University of New York.

I personally believe that  it is right to denounce abuses against woman. As we know that in our society abuses against women are increasing day by day. As mentioned below here,he gave an example of feminist attacked in Nabokov's "Lolita", it is the best novel of 20th century.

But feminism now has a kind of problem. It has become very sectarian, very dogmatic, and I think you have to criticize and oppose these trends. For example, recently we have had a big debate in Spain when a group of feminists attacked Nabokov’s “Lolita,” which I think is one of the greatest 20th century novels. They attacked it because they claim the main character is a pedophile. With this criterion, literature will disappear. It is grotesque! If you respect literature you must accept not only the very idealist, altruist vision of human beings but also the infernal vision of them.

 The second is that in which George Bataille said that in human beings, there are angels and devils. Sometimes the angels are important, but for literature, devils are important too. Literature is a testimony of what we want to hide in the real word. This is the raison d’être of literature. You cannot attack literature for our vices and prejudices and stupidities.

The third one is that in which Llosa said that,today's world young generation give the importance to image more than ideas. It is very harmful to youth that they think  images are creative for modern time but they do not think that this century is the age of Photoshop and post truth.