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Description of Mario Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian writer, college professor, and a former politician. The best achivieves in his life was that he won the Noble Prize of Literature

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Mario Vargas Llosa was born in 1936 in Arequipa, Peru's second largest city. During his childhood in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and Piura, a city in the north of Peru, he believed that his father had died. However, this was a lie told by his mother to conceal their tortuous separation. The truth emerged when, in 1946, his father appeared unexpectedly to take him away from his mother's parents, moving with him and his mother to Lima. This revelation signified an abrupt change in Vargas Llosa's life, from the pampered upbringing of a feminine environment to the hostile treatment of an authoritarian father. At his side, he was to discover fear, injustice and violence for the first time.

During these years in which he left his childhood behind, devouring the works of Dumas and Victor Hugo, the political climate in Peru was a reflection of Vargas Llosa's home life. The dictator Manuel Odría rose to power in 1948 and over the next eight years, while Vargas Llosa studied law and literature at the University of San Marcos, he imposed rigid controls on social life which stifled individuality, engendering scepticism, defeatism and frustration among Peruvians. This period later inspired his novel Conversation in the Cathedral, published in 1969.

The dominant presence of authoritarianism in both public and private spheres led Vargas Llosa to strongly condemn systems which, in one way or another, sought to inhibit individual initiative and restrict personal freedom. His literary works, starting with The Time of the Hero (1963) - one of the key novels which pioneered the 'Boom' period in Latin American literature - reflect his loathing of arbitrary manifestations of power and the absence of law which enables the strongest to impose their will. The inspiration for this novel was the time he spent between 1950 and 1951 in the Leoncio Prado Military Academy, where he was sent by his father to stifle his literary ambitions through military discipline. However, Vargas Llosa managed to rebel against his paternal yoke, not only pursuing a writing career, but also marrying his maternal uncle's sister-in-law Julia Urquidi, who was eleven years older than him and divorced. He drew on these experiences to write his novel Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, published in 1977.

Another fundamental experience in his life was a journey he made in the Amazon jungle in 1958, which inspired novels such as The Green House (1966), Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (1973), The Storyteller (1987) and The Dream of the Celt (2010). As opposed to other city dwellers who first came into contact with the remote jungle landscapes of Peru, which are still inhabited by primitive indigenous tribes, Vargas Llosa found neither exoticism nor harmony between humanity and nature but rather despotism, violence and cruelty. The absence of law and institutions exposed the jungle natives to the worst humiliations and acts of injustice by colonists, missionaries and adventurers, who had come to impose their will through the use of terror and force. What he heard, saw and felt in the jungle convinced Vargas Llosa that the archaic Peru which survived in the depths of the Amazon and the peaks of the Andes should be integrated into a modern Peru, the only Peru which, due to its legal framework, could stop the pillaging and wrongful acts committed against minorities and the most vulnerable sectors of Peruvian society.

Until the early seventies, Vargas Llosa perceived in socialism and the Cuban revolution a series of ideas which embodied modernity and a solution to the moral vices and economic underdevelopment of Latin America. However, when the revolution showed signs of having become an oppressive dictatorship where writers felt their freedom to create was restricted, Vargas Llosa distanced himself from Fidel Castro and socialism and began to advocate reformism, liberal pluralism, democracy and the free market. His changing political inclination brought with it a new way of understanding Latin American problems. The revolution, the dictatorship, nationalism, racism and religious mysticism, all of which are present throughout the course of the republican history of Latin America, now proved to be symptoms of a deeper problem related to intolerance and dogmatism. A host of leaders, rebels and saviours had instigated fanatical attempts to impose a closed view of the world with no concern for the consequences. This human tendency, which is ever present in Latin America and the root cause behind innumerable tragedies, provided the plot for his novel The War of the End of the World in 1981.

In 1987 the attempt by the then president of Peru, Alan García, to nationalise the banking industry was vehemently rejected by Vargas Llosa, who saw this project as a strategy to accumulate power and place the media and businesses in government hands. With the support of large sectors of the population, Vargas Llosa organised protest marches which catapulted him into the political arena. His Movimiento Libertad, which opposed Alan García, evolved into the Frente Democrático, three years later. As the leader of this party he ran in the presidential elections in 1990. However, he lost in the second round to the engineer Alberto Fujimori, who then shut down congress and established a despotic and corrupt dictatorship for which he is currently serving a sentence. Memories of these years can be found in his book of memoirs A Fish in the Water (1993).

Since 1990 Vargas Llosa has published a fortnightly column in the Spanish daily newspaper El País, which is reprinted in different media sources all over the world. In these, he states his opinion regarding the most important current political, social and cultural events. He also teaches literature courses at American universities and writes literary essays. Although Vargas Llosa began writing plays in the 1980s, it was not until 2005 that he decided to take to the stage himself to portray his characters. Aitana Sánchez Gijón, the actress who accompanies him in this new adventure, has described him as a promising young actor.

Translated by Colin Howe

This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and later published in the book series Les Prix Nobel/ Nobel Lectures/The Nobel Prizes. The information is sometimes updated with an addendum submitted by the Laureate.

To cite this section
MLA style: Mario Vargas Llosa - Biographical. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2023. Wed. 25 Oct 2023. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2010/vargas_llosa/biographical/>

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The Nobel Prize in Literature 2010 was awarded to Mario Vargas Llosa "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat"

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A PPT and a Gallery of How to make Inca textiles

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A PPT and a Gallery of How to make Inca textiles

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Cusco used to be the capital city of the Inca empire, important things often happened there. Like the Qorikancha is located there. Main festivals are also host there, like the Inti Raymi

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Ayllu was the government system that people used back in the Inca empire. Like in the Career section,  Aclla or Yanakuna were all a part of Ayllu.

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Back in the Inca empire, Llama had been a good friend with human.  They helped Inca people carry heavy stuff and people use their fur to weave textiles

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The Inca trail was not just an amazing Architecture, it's also a way of communicating. Back then, people didnt have phones or even letters. So the only way to communicate far distance was through Chasqui and the Inca trail.

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Quechua was the official language for the Inca empire. However, because of the invasion of the Spanish, Quechua disappeared very quickly. Quechua didn't have written words, so there were very few literary paper records left.

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Every knot on a quipus has different meaning. Like numbers. When a knots rounded two times, it means 2, when it rounded nine times, it means 9. And it uses the different position of the knots to add or subtracting numbers. It's an incredible way of communication

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In this video, the mian instrument that he used was Pinkullo and quitor. The performer said that this song is a traditional song in antient Cusco

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Prior to Spanish colonization, the native peoples of the South American Andes, while having several distinct spoken languages, lacked any sort of written language or system of writing. Yet, especially during the Inca empire, they somehow managed to keep track with extraordinary accuracy of accounts, tribute payed and owed by the population, dates, stars, even historical events and more. The secret was lengths of knotted cords called " quipus."

"Quipu," simply enough, translates to "knot" from its native Quechua, the predominant native language in most of South America. Each quipu consisted of a thick length of cord (made of cloth, rope, llama hair, etc.) with many smaller cords hanging from it. In these smaller cords, various types of knots would be tied, different knots having different meanings. This is how the quipus were read.

Looking closely, particularly at the shorter cords on the left, you can clearly see different types of knots tied throughout the hanging cords. While mostly associated with the Inca, quipus were actually in use long before the beginning of the Inca empire.

Quipus, despite their simplistic nature, were actually very complex pieces of technology often praised as such by the early observers of Andean society. On their simplest level, quipus were perfect for recording city populations. The most common use of quipus that can be gleaned from colonial records and research, though, is keeping track of tribute payments. In the Inca society, citizens were expected to pay a regular tribute of food, chicha (an alcoholic beverage made from maize), livestock, clothing and other goods, much like monetary taxes today. Inca accountants would keep track of who had payed what on quipus. That, though, is only one thing they were used for. Research into ancient quipus has turned up numbers correlating to those you might find on a calendar (days in a month/year, months in a season, etc.), adding up with startling accuracy. Some may have even been used to track the movements of other nearby planets. And while there is little proof that the knots on quipus represented anything more than numbers, there are documents that tell of them being used to keep track of historic events, including colonial writings telling of natives using quipus to tell conquistadores of times before the Inca empire.

Fun fact: The native South and Central Americans are among the first known civilizations to have a way of representing the mathematical concept of nothingness (in other words, the number zero)

Quipus were read using several factors: the types of knots used, the positioning of the knots on the cords, and the color of the cords. It is generally agreed that most quipus were used for counting, and keeping track of numbers. Quipus used a decimal system of counting. The knots at the bottom of each cord represented units. The knots above those represented tens, the knots above those hundreds, and so on up the cord.

A figure-eight knot represented a single unit at the bottom of the cord, the units place. A multifold long knot, as it is called, was tied into the units place to represent numbers between one and ten (so, two through nine).

Standard overhand knots represented units of ten, so that a single overhand knot in the tens place on the cord equals ten. Two overhand knots in the tens place would equal twenty, and so on. A single overhand knot in the hundreds place equals one hundred, two knots equal two hundred, and so on. This is the same for thousands, ten thousands, up to hundred thousands and over, if necessary (though there are few records of quipus counting that high).

Some quipus also included summation cords tied off the end of a group of cords, using long knots in every unit space to show the total of all the cords in the group. Some quipus consisted of cords of various colors. These colors were deliberate, different colors or patterns having different meanings (yellow cords might count gold, red cords might count soldiers, etc.).

There is much speculation as to whether or not quipus were represented some form of communication beyond numbers. As said by the man is this video, there is a theory (though he seems rather sure of its truth) that some quipus were read as a sort of binary code. There are also colonial documents that tell of Andeans using quipus to tell stories or memorize messages/prayers, though it is unknown how they did so. It has been suggested that the messages were not actually read from the quipus, but that the quipus served as a memory aid to already learned messages.

Usually, quipus were kept and read by a special class of nobility. These were called quipucamayocs. They are also referred to as quipucamayuc, quipucamayu and quipucamayo in different texts.

Though not necessarily the only ones who knew how to read quipus, it was the quipucamayoc's job to keep count of the various quipus used by the nobility, and read the quipus to them as desired. Quipucamayocs created and kept track of quipus concerning population, tribute, military operations, organized labor projects and more.

Writings say that quipus were also sometimes used by messengers called chasquis. Chasquis were positioned in three-mile increments along the roads between cities. One would be given a message to deliver to another city, and he would run to the next chasqui down the road and tell him the message, so he could tell it to the next and so on until it reached its destination. Sometimes one or more quipus would also be given to the chasqui to deliver with the message.

Though many Spanish colonizers were fascinated and impressed by quipus, they were also seen as a threat. Spaniards thought that the quipucamayocs were more loyal to their local rulers than to the Spanish crown, and that they would lie about what was recorded on the quipus. The church also saw quipus, along with many other aspects of Andean culture, as idolatrous and blasphemous. In 1583, a decree by the church council of Lima denounced quipus as the worked of the devil, and demanded they be destroyed. Though many quipus were destroyed and their used was discouraged, quipus did continue to be used for quite a while after. Eventually, though, as the native Andeans were assimilated into Spanish colonial culture, the use of quipus died out.

Quipus are no longer used in Andean societies today, and there is veritably no one who still knows how to create or read quipus correctly (as they were traditionally used, at least). There are some small villages, though, that still use quipus in a way. Tupicocha is one such village, which was visited by researcher Frank L. Salomon, who studied the quipus used by the people there. While not as complex and all-encompassing as ancient quipus, the villagers still use quipus todayto keep certain government records. The quipus also hold symbolic importance, and are used in special ceremonies when passing authority on to a successor.

And, while difficult to find, there are a very scarce few people in the Andes who still use quipus as their main method of record-keeping, such as the grandfather mentioned in the first video and the old man in this one. (skip to around 3:30)

Sources:

Nordenskiöld, E. (1925). Comparative ethnographical studies: The secret of the peruvian quipus. (Vol. 6). Brooklyn, NY: AMS Press.

Salomon, F. (2004). The cord keepers: Khipus and cultural life in a Peruvian village . Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

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Prior to Spanish colonization, the native peoples of the South American Andes, while having several distinct spoken languages, lacked any sort of written language or system of writing. Yet, especially during the Inca empire, they somehow managed to keep track with extraordinary accuracy of accounts, tribute payed and owed by the population, dates, stars, even historical events and more.

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AGURTO Santiago | Catálogo Arquitectura Movimiento Moderno Perú

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Lima 1921 - 2010 Arquitecto egresado de la Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería (UNI) en 1944. Sigue estudios de máster becado en la Universidad de Cornell, donde conoce a personajes como Walter Gropius y Frank Lloyd Wright, y regresa al Perú en 1947. Trabaja como dibujante en el Ministerio de Fomento con el arquitecto Augusto Dammert.

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Inca wall has always been a mysterious for architects because the stones are connected perfectly without technology's help. Santiago Agurto, a famous Peruvian architects, analyzed the way Inca people used to make the stones. He divided different stones in to categories, so people can understand better.

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Inca Trail was the best invention that the Inca people did. This trail went through almost the entire Inca Empire, from flat ground to 13,776 ft high. With almost 40 kilometers. This trail was like the central internet for the Inca empire. Chasqui would run at this trail and deliver messages.

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Qorikancha was the most important temple back in the Inca empire. This temple was especially for Inti. The location of this temple is at Cusco, which used to be the capital of the Inca empire. Even though Peru has been invaded many times, Qorikancha survived, and still visitable today. Explorer discovers that Qorikanchamight is covered by gold when it was built, just peeled off after decades.

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There were two explanation of Torreon. One thinks that it's a temple of Inti. people would pray and worship the God of the sun inside this building. The other thinks that it's a observatory because it had a great view of the sky and horizon..

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It's an ancient instrument appeared in Andean, which was apart of Peru. This instrument was mostly made by bamboo. Since it's from the entire Andean, there is no standard for this

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It was an ancient instrument that the Inca people made back in the Inca empires. The purpose of this instrument was to produce different sounds of birds by using water and air. This instrument was known as the instrument of God because it combined the four-element. The material was from the earth; people use fire to shape the instrument; it uses water and air to makes sounds.

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Cuy is one of the most special food in Peru. It's a grilled or fried rats. And sometimes even hamster.

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When you first saw the picture, you might think it's a cake. But actually, it's a salty dish made with potatoes and vegetables. Back in wars, Peruvians often make this as their food because Potatoes are common in Peru. Soldiers can get the ingredient easily.

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This drink is like the Coca Cola of Peru. It's a sweet soda with a bit of lemon flavor.

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Pisco Sour is a alcohol drink that is known as the "National Drink" of Peru because it's very famous and common. The special thing about this alcohol is that it adds raw eggs in it.

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This art is a common decoration back in the Inca empire. Because alpacas were a common animal back in the days, and they were a good helper for humans, so Inca people makes arts like this to thanks them.

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This art is a kind of ritual sculpture back in the Inca empire. People would put this sculpture at the cage of livestocks for good prosperity. At the center of the sculpture there is a hole, people would put weed or leaves in it as offerings.

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Tumi is a Ritual knife for religious ceremonies. At the top of the knife, there is an image of Inti; at the bottom of the knife, there was a knife made of bronze. People would use Tumi to sacrifice animals during a ceremony to honor Inti, God of the Sun.

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In this video, the man performed with different local instruments. It contains the Water Whistling Bottles, Antaras, Pinkullo, Guayllaquepasand other kinds of instruments. I think the main sound that the man was trying to make is the natural sounds. You can see that he use a thing like a wing to flap himself. That produces a sound like a bird is flying.

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This instrument was a trumpets made of Strombus

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This instrument was also appeared in Andean. This instrument is similar to the recorder, it's like a long bamboo with multiple holes on it.

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A PPT and a gallery about water whistling bottles

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A PPT and a gallery about water whistling bottles

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Waqtana was a clod buster back in the Inca Empire.

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Bronze Chisels were a common tool back in the Inca empire. It was made of Bronze. Back then, bronze was one of the strongest materials for making tools, so bronze chisels were been used by many.

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Description of Virgen del Carmen in Paucartambo

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Description of Virgen del Carmen in Paucartambo

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The main event of Virgen del Carmen in Paucartambo is the parade. Around the middle of  March, a virus of dancing groups and people gather at Campesinos. They dance and dance around the village. Once it's midnight. People will drink lots f wine to be the end of this festival.

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Sondor Raymi is a musical and dramatic festival. On July 14th, at Pacucha lagoon, more than 300 actors will perform the myth of Usquwillca, a fictional god, emerge from the lake.

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This festival is celebrating the reappearance of the Pleiades constellation, a cluster. It doesn't have a specific time, but it always holds at the end of June or begging of July, when the Pleiades constellation appeared. They would kneel to the first sunrise after the festival

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Inti Raymi is one of the most famous and important festivals of the Inca empire. This festival was to worship the god of the sun, Inti. Every year on July 4th, people will gather around at the main plaza. People will wear traditional and colorful clothes when they're dancing, and hold religious ceremonies.

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Apu Illapu was God in charge of rain. He was also one of the farmer's favorites God because of the rain.

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Mama Quilla was Inti's wife. Opposite from Inti, she is considered the god of the moon. Back then, people use the moon to count time, so she is also the god of time. Not only that, but she also was seen as the mother of the Inca empire.

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The priesthood at that time played an important role in the Inca religion. They are the ones who can communicate with God. The highest priesthood was called Villac Umu. They lived in Cusco, the capital of the Inca empire. Their social status was one of the highest at that time, just a bit lower than the emperor.

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Inti is the most popular god in all Inca religions, even more important than Viracocha. He helps the crops to grow, and nourish the earth. He is the symbol of warmth and harvest, the farmer's favorite god. Some people said that Inti is the very first god that exists in the Inca religion, but that statement against Viracocha. He might be the father of Inca, or maybe it's just the son of Viracocha

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This god, Viracocha, was been known as the creator of humans, animals, and everything in the universe. He's like the god in Christianity. He was also known as the teacher and hero of culture. He told human technic and skills. People said that he was the protector of Pachacuti, the Inca ruler. Rumors claim that it gave advice to the emperor of Inca in his dream

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Mit'a is a duty every male in the Inca empire has to follow.  At the age of 15 to 50, Inca men needed to participate in public services. Like joining the army, building infrastructure, or protecting public places.

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This is a group of people who usually are slaves in the Ayllu system (Inca community system). They serve Inca noble, help them with food or life needs, and much more. However, their status of slavery is voluntary, not by force. Yanakuna choose to be slaves and to be a part of the Ayllu. If not, they can leave Ayllu and work. Those people who choose to leave Inca were called "traitors of their race", it's a shame for people to leave the Ayllu.

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Aclla is a group of women chosen from the entire Inca empire.  They were chosen when they were about eight to ten and will be taken to the capital: Cusco. They lived in a specific house, acllawasi, the house of the chosen women. Aclla are the most excellent weavers around the Inca empire. They produce textiles for the Emperor and royal family.  Other than weaving, they were also responsible for cooking for religious festivals and producing luxuries. They often married to men who had high status in the empire.

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This is an ancient Inca site in Peru. The structure of the site is that staircases spread out from the center of the site. Between the staircases, there are stairs for people to come down to the center of the site. The purpose of this low-lying land is uncertain, but most of the researchers determine it as an "agricultural research station". For each flor, the temperature of the soil has vast differences; and the position of the entire site is well exposed to the sun and rain. According to the above reasons, researchers determine this site as a station for Ancient Inca scientists to experience farming.

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Even though most of the Inca weavers were women, There are still male weavers at that time, also known as qumpicamayocs. They were professional weavers that weave the finest clothes for high-class people who work for the empire and the army.

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Inca weavers are one of the best weavers in the world's history. Most of them are women. They often wear Inca traditional clothes. Bright red textiles with hand made patterns, big hat form like a bow.  the job of weavers is to create beautiful and detailed textiles. They are all highly skilled and made those textiles with no defect. Look at the "Art" section to find out more about those textiles.

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In the Inca empire, different qualities of textiles represent your social status and your wealth.  The more high-quality the cloth, the more valuable it is. If the work is well weaved, it might be more precious than gold or silver. People wore their textile to tell others their status. Also, they use textiles as currencies.

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The technique Inca people use to make the textiles is the warp complementary technique. The vertical and horizontal lines let the textiles weave together. The weaver will seats at the end of the backstrap loom. First, she will wind the vertical line. When the entire loom is full of strings, she then will start lifting different kinds of strings, and put horizontal strings between the vertical lines, by using different colors of horizontal lines and the numbers of strings she lifts up, different arts are formed.

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Quipus were a tool Inca people use to communicate.  They would tie different kinds of knots to represent different meanings.  Although it's a communication to Inca people, few of them could read the meanings. Most of the time it was Chasqui the one who tied those nuts, and the one who translate them to other people. Quipus were the thing that Chasqui carried. It was like Chasqui was carrying messages instead of an actual thing.

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Chasqui was the messenger in the Inca empire. Their condition needed to be physically fit and nimble. The duty of Chasqui is to deliver messages through the Chasqui relay system. The way Chasgui deliver those messages was by carrying the Quipus. And people who were Chasgui were the few people who can read Quipus. So they were not just delivering the Quipus, they also translate that to people.

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Boats and boating--Equipment and supplies