BREAKING: Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel literature laureate and a giant of Latin American letters for many decades, has died, his son said Sunday. He was 89. apnews.com/article/mario-…
With today goes the last living author of the "Latin Boom," what José Donoso considered a marketing term, only for a few select men, who nevertheless wrote some of the greatest fiction in history.
Most book marketing is unfortunate, but how lucky we are to have seen that Boom!
We at the Review mourn the loss of Mario Vargas Llosa (1936-2025). In celebration of his life and work, we’ve unlocked his Art of Fiction interview from our archive.
theparisreview.org/interviews/228…
The last living titan of the Latin American literary “boom” and one of the most influential writers of the Spanish-speaking world died on Sunday.
lithub.com/mario-vargas-l…
remember: even not writing is writing. never finishing anything is writing. letting your life slip through your hands is writing. dying without having ever loved is writing. getting hit by a self-driving car while looking at your phone on the sidewalk is writing
If you want to understand a few things about what Thomas Pynchon’s up to in his novels, take a look at this short essay from 1993: “Nearer My Couch to Thee.” The NYT asked seven writers to compose essays on the Seven Deadly Sins. Pynchon, unsurprisingly, chose Sloth.
Finally read Mircea Cărtărescu’s Solenoid. The Borges and Kafka comparisons are fair enough, but this is gloriously, obscenely original, wonderfully Romanian. Belongs with Books of Jacob, Rings of Saturn, 2666, Septology and We Do Not Part as one of the new century’s best novels.
I still think Philip Roth is the best English-writing novelist of the second half of the 20th century, and arguably also of the first decade of the 21st century.
San Francisco friends: Greg Roden’s documentary about WTV —
No Bad Takes: An American Picture Show is playing as part of the 2025 Documentary Festival! 🔗👇
I don’t know the best definition of contemporary illiteracy but it’s something like “read James and came to the conclusion that Percival Everett dislikes Mark Twain.”