SUPER MARIO OF SEARING LETTERS

HY do we tell stories? Because narratives gift us with powers to survive the uncertain and momentary tales we live.

- C P SURENDRAN

Mario Vargas Llosa's philosophy of writing centers on literature as a transformative act—an exploration of human complexity, power and rebellion that challenges reality while reflecting it. He viewed the novel as a space to confront societal and personal truths, blending autobiography with invention to create "autonomous" worlds that provoke and illuminate. Admittedly, the illumination was often not beautiful, but it was always revelatory.

Vargas Llosa believed writing was a way to interrogate power structures and human desires. In his essay Letters to a Young Novelist (1997), he describes novels as "a secret way of knowing reality, of breaking through the prejudices and platitudes that make up so much of our everyday vision of things".

This message connects to his debut novel The Time of the Hero (1963), where Vargas Llosa first critiqued institutional power and conformity in a Peruvian military academy, showing how collective structures crush individuality—a precursor to his explicit rejection of tribalism later.

In our world, the insight that a tribe or a group is dictatorial is even more valid. Whether it is social media or identity rights, we see how even small groupings can be viciously authoritarian. What's cancellation if not a death sentence of sorts ordered outside the law of the land?

Once upon a time, the great mythical confrontation was Man/Woman vs the State. That is no longer the case. The fight now is three-cornered: State vs Group vs the Individual. When we follow a viral tweet, we become a tribe. Critiquing it could result in an instant boycott.

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