March 25, 1994

Contact: Craig D'Ooge (202) 707-9189

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Author Mario Vargas Llosa To Read at Library of Congress April 21

On Thursday, April 21, at 6:45 p.m., author Mario Vargas Llosa will read from his work in Spanish, and author Mark Falcoff will read English translations. The reading, presented under the auspices of the Gertrude Clarke Whittall Poetry and Literature Fund, with assistance from the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress, will be held in the Mumford Room, sixth floor, of the James Madison Building. Tickets are not required.

Mario Vargas Llosa was born in Peru and spent much of his early life there and in Bolivia. He attended college in Lima and later in Piura, where he began his writing career as a columnist for local periodicals. In 1953 he began a course of study at La Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, receiving the Licenciado en Literatura in 1958.

He subsequently began publishing his stories. In 1969 Mr. Vargas Llosa received his doctor of literature degree from the University of Madrid, and shortly thereafter won an award for his collection of stories, Los jefes. He then moved to Paris, where he lived for several years, teaching Spanish and working as a journalist. His career has included being a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and teaching at Harvard University, Dowling College and Princeton University. This year, he is the first Distinguished Writer in Residence at Georgetown University's School of Languages and Linguistics.

Mr. Vargas Llosa is a prolific writer. His books include collections of stories, novels and nonfiction works. Many of his writings have been translated into English, most recently The Storyteller, In Praise of the Stepmother and A Writer's Reality. A Fish in the Water: A Memoir was published this year. Mark Falcoff is Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI), where his specialty is Latin American issues. He received his B.A. degree in political science at the University of Missouri and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Princeton University. He has taught at the universities of Illinois, Oregon and California, and at the U.S. Foreign Service Institute. In 1983 he served as a senior consultant to the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America. He has been a Fellow at AEI since 1981.

Mr. Falcoff is the author of Small Countries, Large Issues: A Tale of Two Policies and Modern Chile: A Critical History. He has coedited several works and has contributed to many volumes on Latin American issues and U.S. policy.

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PR 94-060
3/25/94
ISSN 0731-3527