TEXT

The Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, whose deeply political work vividly examines the perils of power and corruption in Latin America, won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday.

Mr. Vargas Llosa, 74, is one of the most celebrated writers of the Spanish-speaking world, an anti-totalitarian intellectual whose work covers the range of human experience, whether it is ideology or eros. He is frequently mentioned with his contemporary Gabriel García Márquez, who won the literature Nobel in 1982, the last South American to do so. Mr. Vargas Llosa has written more than 30 works of nonfiction, plays and novels, including "The Feast of the Goat" and "The War of the End of the World."

The prize is the first for a writer in the Spanish language in two decades, after Octavio Paz of Mexico won in 1990. It renews attention on the Latin American writers who gained renown in the 1960s, like Julio Cortázar of Argentina and Carlos Fuentes of Mexico, who formed the region’s "boom generation."

During a news conference at the Instituto Cervantes in Manhattan on Thursday, Mr. Vargas Llosa, an elegant, dashing figure with silvery hair, appeared in front of a crowd of giddy journalists, mostly Spanish-speaking, and Alejandro Toledo, the former president of Peru, who sat in the front row. Mr. Vargas Llosa is currently spending the semester in the United States, teaching Latin American studies at Princeton.

Answering questions in English, Spanish and a bit of French, Mr. Vargas Llosa called the Nobel a recognition of the importance of Latin American literature and of the Spanish language, which has acquired "a sort of citizenship in the world," he said.

The announcement of the prize was greeted largely with enthusiasm in Latin America, where Mr. Vargas Llosa is widely admired for his literary greatness but is a divisive figure because of his conservative politics. He has frequently criticized leftist governments in the region, including those of Cuba and Venezuela.

In Peru, members of Congress took to the floor to praise him. People celebrated in Arequipa, the provincial city where he was born, with Peruvian television showing a band playing the national anthem in the streets.

Felipe Calderón, Mexico’s president, wrote in a Twitter message that the prize was cause for "Latin American pride."

In selecting Mr. Vargas Llosa, the Swedish Academy has once again made a literary choice tinged with politics, though this time from the right instead of the left.

Recent winners of the literature Nobel include Herta Müller, the Romanian-born German novelist; Orhan Pamuk of Turkey; and Harold Pinter of Britain.

"It’s very difficult for a Latin American writer to avoid politics," Mr. Vargas Llosa said on Thursday. "Literature is an expression of life, and you cannot eradicate politics from life."

The previous Nobel laureate of the "boom generation," Mr. García Márquez of Colombia, won the prize after wide acclaim for his masterpiece, "One Hundred Years of Solitude." In a twist worthy of one of Mr. Vargas Llosa’s subplots, Mr. García Márquez and Mr. Vargas Llosa, at one point close friends, had a violent falling out in 1976 in Mexico City, which they have yet to patch up.

The news that Mr. Vargas Llosa had won the prize reached him early on Thursday morning, when he was working in his apartment in Manhattan, preparing to set out on a walk through Central Park, he told a radio station in Peru. Initially, he thought it was a prank.

"It was a grand surprise," he said. "It’s a good way to start a New York day."

From: www.nytimes.com/October 7, 2010.

TEXT

The Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, whose deeply political work vividly examines the perils of power and corruption in Latin America, won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday.

Mr. Vargas Llosa, 74, is one of the most celebrated writers of the Spanish-speaking world, an anti-totalitarian intellectual whose work covers the range of human experience, whether it is ideology or eros. He is frequently mentioned with his contemporary Gabriel García Márquez, who won the literature Nobel in 1982, the last South American to do so. Mr. Vargas Llosa has written more than 30 works of nonfiction, plays and novels, including "The Feast of the Goat" and "The War of the End of the World."

The prize is the first for a writer in the Spanish language in two decades, after Octavio Paz of Mexico won in 1990. It renews attention on the Latin American writers who gained renown in the 1960s, like Julio Cortázar of Argentina and Carlos Fuentes of Mexico, who formed the region’s "boom generation."

During a news conference at the Instituto Cervantes in Manhattan on Thursday, Mr. Vargas Llosa, an elegant, dashing figure with silvery hair, appeared in front of a crowd of giddy journalists, mostly Spanish-speaking, and Alejandro Toledo, the former president of Peru, who sat in the front row. Mr. Vargas Llosa is currently spending the semester in the United States, teaching Latin American studies at Princeton.

Answering questions in English, Spanish and a bit of French, Mr. Vargas Llosa called the Nobel a recognition of the importance of Latin American literature and of the Spanish language, which has acquired "a sort of citizenship in the world," he said.

The announcement of the prize was greeted largely with enthusiasm in Latin America, where Mr. Vargas Llosa is widely admired for his literary greatness but is a divisive figure because of his conservative politics. He has frequently criticized leftist governments in the region, including those of Cuba and Venezuela.

In Peru, members of Congress took to the floor to praise him. People celebrated in Arequipa, the provincial city where he was born, with Peruvian television showing a band playing the national anthem in the streets.

Felipe Calderón, Mexico’s president, wrote in a Twitter message that the prize was cause for "Latin American pride."

In selecting Mr. Vargas Llosa, the Swedish Academy has once again made a literary choice tinged with politics, though this time from the right instead of the left.

Recent winners of the literature Nobel include Herta Müller, the Romanian-born German novelist; Orhan Pamuk of Turkey; and Harold Pinter of Britain.

"It’s very difficult for a Latin American writer to avoid politics," Mr. Vargas Llosa said on Thursday. "Literature is an expression of life, and you cannot eradicate politics from life."

The previous Nobel laureate of the "boom generation," Mr. García Márquez of Colombia, won the prize after wide acclaim for his masterpiece, "One Hundred Years of Solitude." In a twist worthy of one of Mr. Vargas Llosa’s subplots, Mr. García Márquez and Mr. Vargas Llosa, at one point close friends, had a violent falling out in 1976 in Mexico City, which they have yet to patch up.

The news that Mr. Vargas Llosa had won the prize reached him early on Thursday morning, when he was working in his apartment in Manhattan, preparing to set out on a walk through Central Park, he told a radio station in Peru. Initially, he thought it was a prank.

"It was a grand surprise," he said. "It’s a good way to start a New York day."

From: www.nytimes.com/October 7, 2010.

Être heureux! Revendication collective ou individuelle?

Elle court, elle court, l’idée du bonheur. Des Grecs épicuriens ou stoïciens, aux économistes, psychologues et sociologues contemporains. Monopolisée un temps par l’Église, privatisée par la révolution, mentionnée dans la déclaration des droits de l’homme, soucieuse «du bonheur de tous». «La grande affaire et la seule qu’on doive avoir, c’est vivre heureux» se persuadait Voltaire, tranchant alors sur la religiosité, qui réservait jadis ce couvert pour l’au-delà.

L’affaire n’est pas neuve. La voilà recyclée par le capitalisme de grande consommation. Car, quête sociale ou individuelle, le bonheur fait un retour en force dans le discours des sociétés occidentales depuis qu’au seuil du XXIe. siècle se sont éffondrées les utopies politiques et les idéologies. Celles-ci rêvaient de faire le bonheur de l’humanité. En s’actualisant autour de l’individu, la société pousse à commencer par soi.

C’est dans l’air du temps vouloir mesurer le bonheur ou le bien-être des gens. C’en serait même devenu un impératif social: comme de l’attention portée à la qualité de l’air et à celle de l’eau, à la capacité d’autonomie des individus, à leur capital éducatif, culturel, à leur aptitude à la paix.

L’affaiblissement des liens sociaux, du degré de confiance dans autrui, du niveau d’entraide et du sentiment de sécurité ont des effets négatifs pour la santé. Évidemment, comme l’indique le bon sens populaire, si la richesse ne crée pas le bonheur, elle y contribue fortement. Mais jusqu’à un certain niveau seulement. Car si l’augmentation des revenus a des effets spectaculaires et durables sur le bien-être dans les populations pauvres, cette amélioration a un effet limité chez les plus riches.

Jean Michel Dumay

Extrait adapté de Le Monde Dossiers & Documents, nº 398, juin 2010

TEXTO

La policía captura a un supuesto asesino once años después del crimen

La policía no olvida jamás. Lo ha vuelto a demostrar una vez más con la detención de David Lozano Martínez, de 33 años, acusado de estar implicado en el asesinato de un portero de la discoteca Amnesia, de Madrid, ocurrido en mayo de 1999. Lozano ha sido capturado en el puerto de Benalmádena (Málaga), once años después del tiroteo, en el que resultó muerto un portero y otros tres lograron sobrevivir porque vestían chalecos antibala, según la Dirección General de la Policía y la Guardia Civil. Los hechos por los que Lozano estaba buscado por la justicia se remontan a finales de la década de los 90, años en los que la banda de Los Iraníes, de la que formaba parte el detenido, luchaba por hacerse con el control de la seguridad y el tráfico de drogas de ciertas discotecas madrileñas. En caso de que el dueño se resistiera a darles la concesión de ese servicio, provocaban altercados hasta que el propietario se doblegaba a sus deseos. La madrugada del 11 de mayo de 1999, el grupo de Los Iraníes irrumpió en la discoteca Amnesia, de la madrileña Ronda de Atocha, con el fin de hacerse con el control de dicho establecimiento. Dos hermanos iraníes, apellidados Mendizadeh, en unión de Alfonso Taborda Tercero y David Lozano entre otros, provistos con armas blancas y de fuego, participaron en la muerte a tiros de Víctor Manuel Pozo Patón y causaron lesiones a otros tres porteros de la discoteca. Patón cayó abatido porque en el momento del ataque se había desprendido del chaleco antibalas por el calor que hacía esa noche en Madrid. Por tales hechos, los autores fueron condenados en el año 2004 por un delito de homicidio consumado con el agravante de "abuso de superioridad", así como por tres homicidios en grado de tentativa. Lozano no compareció a juicio y durante todos estos años ha estado evadido, burlando la acción de la justicia. Recientemente, el Grupo de Respuesta Especial al Crimen Organizado de Málaga (Greco) y el Grupo de Localización de Fugitivos recobraron su pista en la Costa del Sol. En la madrugada del pasado día 11, Lozano fue capturado en un local de ocio del puerto deportivo Puerto Marina de Benalmádena. Fue arrestado sin incidentes. El acusado portaba un pasaporte falso, con su fotografía, a nombre de David Arévalo Jiménez, el cual habría estado utilizando para eludir a la justicia durante este tiempo, según fuentes de la investigación.

DUVA, Jesús. Madrid: España, 16.09.2010. Texto adaptado.