The Passions and Politics of Peru's Nobel Laureate Gerald Martin's biography of Mario Vargas Llosa offers a nuanced account of the Peruvian writer's life, defying easy categorization.
However, it also raises questions about the ease with which politicians and intellectuals can reinvent themselves. Vargas Llosa was born into an aristocratic family in Lima, part of the city's upper echelons.
Yet he chose to write about the lives of the marginalized and oppressed, a tension that recurs throughout Martin's biography. This dichotomy is not simply a matter of politics; it also reflects class and geography.