The Nobel Prize in Literature Mario Vargas Llosa, who passed away this Sunday in Lima at the age of 89, visited Lanzarote in October 2009 in the company of his wife, Patricia Llosa Urquidi, and his Alfaguara editor at the time, Juan Cruz.
It was a private trip that did not involve the author's participation in any public forum. They were hosted on the island by the writer and director of the César Manrique Foundation, Fernando Gómez Aguilera.
The author of The Feast of the Goat toured the Foundation's headquarters and admired the work of the Lanzarote artist, which seduced the Peruvian couple.
For two days, Gómez Aguilera accompanied them and showed them various places on the island, whose volcanic and agricultural landscapes aroused the interest of the writer, who was traveling to Lanzarote for the first time.
He enjoyed moments of rest and had the opportunity to eat fish in Famara, next to the beach, taking an interest in the Chinijo archipelago and the Risco.
The director of the César Manrique Foundation highlights, in statements to EFE, "the affability of the Vargas Llosa couple and the always sparkling, cultured and fun conversation of the Nobel laureate, who always had a reputation for being a great conversationalist."
At night, José Saramago and Pilar del Río organized a dinner at their home in Tías.
Saramago and Vargas Llosa met and conversed in a relaxed and cordial tone, with mutual respect, despite the ideological differences between the two writers, as Gómez Aguilera, who attended the meeting, confirms.
The Portuguese writer had won the Nobel Prize in 1998, while the Swedish Academy would award it to Vargas Llosa the year after his visit to the island, in 2010, a few months after Saramago had passed away in Tías.
Literature, travels, writers and common friends were topics of conversation, in addition to the island of Lanzarote, of which both the Peruvian author and his wife took away a magnificent memory.