Abstract

TCHEREPASHENETS, Nataly. Love in Translation: Mario Vargas Llosa's Travesuras de la niña mala and the Nineteenth Century European Novel. Káñina [online]. 2016, vol.40, n.1, pp.11-18. ISSN 2215-2636.  http://dx.doi.org/10.15517/rk.v40i1.24135.

On multiple occasions, Mario Vargas Llosa expressed his fascination with 19th century novels. In this article, I suggest that Travesuras de la niña mala (2006) enters into implicit dialogue with Madame Bovary (1856) and L'éducation sentimentale (1869) by Gustave Flaubert, and with Fathers and Sons (1862) by Ivan Turgenev, which are some of favored works fromVargas Llosa's youth. Whereas Flaubert and Turgenev were primarily interested in the psychological aspects of their characters and in the exploration of the omnipotent power of sentiments, in Vargas Llosa's novel these themes obtain a metapoetical significance that enables the Peruvian writer to celebrate reading as an incessant source of inspiration. I also suggest that these writers share a skepticism of politics as a reinvigorating social force, which, in the case of Vargas Llosa can be interpreted as an artistic manifestation of the writer's pessimism towards any political activity, a view that informs his latest work.

Keywords : Nineteenth century psychological novel; metafiction; Peru; Gustave Flaubert; Ivan Turgenev.

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