L’Académie Française, the French literary academy, has elected Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa as one of its 40 members, a select group known as “the immortals.” Not that the Nobel Prize laureate still needs any further validation, after decades of writing critiques, journalism, and plays — as well as fiction — which have produced some of the modern world’s most incredible pieces of literature.
But Mr. Vargas Llosa’s entry into the prestigious French literary academy — without ever publishing work in French — is yet another testament to his grandeur.
I discovered his work in my early 20s, thanks to a former boss who handed me a ragged copy of “Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter,” ensuring me that the book would blow my mind. The semi-autobiographical tale revolves around an aspiring journalist and writer named Mario and two extraordinary characters from his coming of age: his alluring aunt Julia, who he decides to pursue, and Pedro Camacho, an...