The Language of Passion: Selected Commentary

Ten years of world-class journalism from one of Latin America’s most influential and controversial men of letters

Since 1977, Mario Vargas Llosa has contributed a biweekly column to Spain’s major newspaper, El País. Dubbed “Touchstone,” and read in syndication by Spanish-speaking readers around the globe, the column is renowned—in some circles, notorious—for skewering the excesses of the Latin American left and championing classic liberalism and free-market democracy. In this collection of columns from the 1990s, Vargas Llosa weighs in on the burning questions of the last decade, including the travails of Latin American democracy, the role of religion in civic life, and the future of globalization. But Vargas Llosa’s influence is hardly limited to politics. In some of the liveliest critical writing of his career, he makes a pilgrimage to Bob Marley’s shrine in Jamaica, celebrates the sexual abandon of Carnival in Rio, and examines the legacy of Vermeer, Bertolt Brecht, Frida Kahlo, and Octavio Paz, among others.

Vargas Llosa is a model of the engaged writer: whatever his subject, he brings to bear the intelligence, wit, tolerance, and moral seriousness that are the hallmark of his nonfiction. The Language of Passion is the work of a cosmopolite in the true sense of the word.