Literary lovers and critics began to speculate about possible damage to the health of the writer and Peruvian Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa, after it was announced cancellation of his attendance at the ‘Meeting of Culture in Freedom’, which would take place on the 18th in Madrid and would be carried out under the connotation of a tribute party for the 88-year-old eminence.
This would not have been the first chair of this type, since for a few years Vargas Llosa chair this event. Hence the surprise of his followers. In addition, it had previously been confirmed that the novelist would travel from Lima to be with his guests, most of them figures from the academic, cultural, journalistic, business and political world, as mentioned by the same event on its website.
However, at the last minute, the writer’s son, Alvaro Vargas Llosa He has come out publicly to explain to the press that it will be he, instead of his father, who will attend the event. This is because a medical prescription prevents the Nobel Prize winner from traveling long distances.
“My father is almost 89 years old, he is on the threshold of 90 years old, It is an age at which one has to reduce the intensity of one’s activities a little.“, explained the author’s son, justifying why his father no longer usually appears at public events.
Why won’t Mario Vargas Llosa attend the ‘Meeting of Culture in Freedom’ organized by his department?
Álvaro Vargas Llosa specified that it is not an illness that stops the writer from taking trips, but rather now he prefers to focus on his intellectual activity to take care of his health. “He is of an age that requires reducing the level of activity but it does not mean that he does not have it, he has intellectual activity, a very intense family activity, he will return to Europe in a few months,” said the writer’s son.
“Now he has to be on the other side of the pond because he divides his time between Spain and Peru and some other places and is very alert intellectually, reading a lot. He is not only with his family but with many people from Culture who visit him,” Álvaro added.
In addition, Vargas Llosa’s son invited the press not to speculate anymore about his father’s state of health. “I advise not to pay too much attention to gossip on this topic, because it is people who are not informed. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” he said.
