8 October 2010. Prof Dr. Yvette Sánchez, the holder of the Chair of Spanish Language and Literature and Director of the Centro Latinoamericano-Suizo at the HSG, engaged Vargas Llosa some time ago. “It is an honour to be able to welcome him at the University of St.Gallen. Now that he has won the Nobel Prize, though, we are a bit worried that he won’t be able to stick to the agreement,” says Sánchez laughingly. However, there should be no changes to Vargas Llosa’s acceptance of a visiting professorship at the HSG.

“Literature and history”
The plans are for Vargas Llosa to run a four-day seminar on “Literature and history” in Autumn Semester 2011. The new Nobel Prize winner intends to involve students in the sounding-out of the relations between fiction and political/social realities which inspire literature. Moreover, it is planned that the 74-year-old writer will give a public lecture.

Vargas Llosa has had a direct relationship with the HSG ever since 1988, when the University of St.Gallen honoured him with the Freedom Prize of the Max Schmidheiny Foundation.

A career spanning decades
Mario Vargas Llosa is one of the flagship writers of 20th century Latin American literature, together with Colombia’s Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Mexico’s Carlos Fuentes and Argentina’s Julio Cortázar. Vargas Llosa achieved his literary breakthrough in 1963 with his novel The Time of the Hero, which was translated into more than 20 languages. His best known works include The Feast of the Goat, The Green House and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. His latest novel, El sueño del celta, which deals with the inhumanities in the colonial rubber trade in the Congo and the Amazonas, is scheduled to appear this autumn.