It is the function of the novelist to tell timeless and universal truths through the device of a fashioned narrative. A story’s significance as a piece of art cannot be divorced from its message, any more than a society’s prospects for freedom and prosperity can be divorced from its underlying principles. The write and the man are one and the same, as are the culture and its common beliefs.
—Mario Vargas Llosa. November 8, 2011. “Literature and the Search for Liberty.” The Wall Street Journal. A19.
—Mario Vargas Llosa. November 8, 2011. “Literature and the Search for Liberty.” The Wall Street Journal. A19.
What is lost on the collectivists, on the other hand, is the prime importance of individual freedom for societies to flourish and economies to thrive. This is the core insight of true liberalism: All individual freedoms are part of an inseparable whole....Many cling to the hopes that the economy can be centrally planned. Education, health care, housing, money and banking, crime control, transportation, energy and far more follow the failed command-and-control model that has been repeatedly discredited. Some look to nationalist and statist solutions to trade imbalances and migration problems, instead of toward greater freedom.
—Mario Vargas Llosa. November 8, 2011. “Literature and the Search for Liberty.” The Wall Street Journal. A19.
—Mario Vargas Llosa. November 8, 2011. “Literature and the Search for Liberty.” The Wall Street Journal. A19.
The search for liberty is simply part of the greater search for a world where respect for the rule of law and human rights is universal—a world free of dictators, terrorists, warmongers and fanatics, where men and women of all nationalities, races, traditions and creeds can coexist in the culture of freedom, where borders give way to bridges that people cross to reach their goals limited only by free will and respect for one another’s rights. It is a search to which I’ve dedicated my writing and so many have taken notice. But is it not a search to which we should all devote our very lives? The answer is clear when we see what is at stake.
—Mario Vargas Llosa. November 8, 2011. “Literature and the Search for Liberty.” The Wall Street Journal. A19.
—Mario Vargas Llosa. November 8, 2011. “Literature and the Search for Liberty.” The Wall Street Journal. A19.
