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Article: A WRITER OUT OF WATER; Mario Vargas Llosa Lost His Race for President of Peru. He Found Some Hard Truths.
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- May 25, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
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Pretend for a moment that Michael Dukakis took off for Zurich
three days after he lost the '88 election. Suppose he announced he
was going to become a Swiss citizen. Imagine further Dukakis saying
the policies of the newly elected George Bush disgusted him, and
that other nations should impose sanctions against the United
States.
Improbable as such a scenario might sound, it nevertheless
strongly resembles the behavior of Mario Vargas Llosa. The novelist
ran for the presidency of Peru in 1990 as a reluctant savior, the
outsider who would rescue the country from terrorism, bankruptcy and
despair.
"I thought you could do politics differently," he says.
But politics proved inflexible, ...