Vargas Llosa sees himself as commoner, not marquis
AFP
LIMA- Mario Vargas Llosa, the 2010 Nobel laureate for literature, thanked Spain's King Juan Carlos I on Friday for making him a marquis, but said he was born a commoner and would die one, too.
"It's a very kind gesture, I am grateful to the king and to Spain, and at the same time I'd like to say I was born a plebeian and I'll die a plebeian," he told the Lima radio station RPP.
The author of novels ranging from "Conversation in the Cathedral" to "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter" and "Feast of the Goat," Vargas Llosa is one of the leading lights of a Latin American literary boom that burst onto the scene in the 1960s.
The king granted him the title of Marquis for "don Jorge Mario Vargas Llosa's extraordinary contribution, which is universally appreciated, to Spanish literature and language."
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