Legendary Peruvian author tackles love story genre

LIMA, PERU - Mario Vargas Llosa, whose novels, plays and essays have established him as one of Latin American literary greats, has begun a new novel on a genre that has so far eluded him, the love story.

Often considered a candidate for the Nobel Prize for literature, Vargas Llosa told RPP radio on Friday he had begun a new "picaresque" novel, "Las Travesuras de una Nina Mala" (The Mischief that a Naughty Girl Gets Up To).

"It's a love story, something I've never written before. Love always appears in my novels, but I've never written a love story from beginning to end. Maybe in old age I've come to the point of filling that vacuum," he said.

But Vargas Llosa, 68, says he feels more unsure about the quality of his writing now than when he was as a young man.

"I'm more insecure, I have more doubts, I suffer from more uncertainties and more fear every time I sit down to write than I did when I started," Vargas Llosa said, a day after receiving an honorary degree from Paris' Sorbonne University.

The author, part of the "boom generation" with Colombia's Gabriel Garcia Marquez who helped put Latin American literature on the map in the 1960s, said he was still thrilled by writing and enjoys developing projects for months or years.

"Every time I have that experience, I discover that I remain young despite my age," said Vargas Llosa, a naturalized Spaniard who made a failed bid for Peru's presidency in 1990.

Vargas Llosa has turned out more than 30 novels, plays and essays, including "The Time of the Hero," "Conversation in the Cathedral," "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter," inspired by a brief marriage, and his latest "The Temptation of the Impossible," a study of French writer Victor Hugo.

- REUTERS