Why marketers and brand builders should read Llosa

Mario Vargas Llosa, an aristocrat of Spanish ancestry, was sent to Lima's military academy to sweat the love of literature out of him.

- SHUBRANSHU SINGH

Instead, the experience gave us his first novel, The Time of the Hero. Among the greatest literary figures of our times, the Peruvian novelist and liberal died on 13 April, aged 89. I was introduced to his work in 2001 whilst I lived in Aliso Viejo in Southern California and have read much of his work since then.

Llosa's pen charted the psychological, political and social transformations of Latin America with a rare combination of intellectual rigour and narrative brilliance, but his legacy goes beyond the obvious. He offered more than storytelling. His imagination was like an SOS. As Roger Scruton said, "Consolation from imaginary things is not an imaginary consolation."

What made Llosa's voice unique was his fearless engagement with power in all facets its seductions, hypocrisies and consequences. He dissected dictatorships and democracies alike, drawing from the political chaos of Latin America not just to critique, but to understand. His lessons were applicable to all mankind.