Mario Vargas Llosa is close to becoming a member of the French Academy

On November 25, the French Academy will vote to decide whether the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa you can become one of its members. As reported by the Spanish newspaper “El País”, on October 7 his candidacy was accepted.

The French Academy is the institution in charge of the defense and preservation of the Francophone language. Founded by Cardinal Richelieu in 1634, is recognized for its exclusive nature, to the point that the eventual entry of the Peruvian Nobel Prize could break two of its rules.

The first is that, to date and according to its regulations, Only people over the age of 75 are accepted as members. Currently, Vargas Llosa is 85. However, this impediment has been described as “stupid” and “discriminatory” by some of the members of the academy itself.

Second, and perhaps the most controversial, is the fact that the institution is only made up of people who write in French. And although Vargas Llosa has a great affinity with the letters of France, all his work has been written in Spanish, so his possible admission would be unpublished.

“I think we can accept it, because it is Vargas Llosa and he has a totally loving relationship with French culture […] It will be chosen without problem“, Declared to” El País “the philosopher and academic Alain Finkielkraut.

“Our discussions showed that neither of these two issues is an obstacle, so we welcome your candidacy, and I think there is no problem for me to enter this Academy “added the novelist, diplomat and also member of the conclave Jean-Christophe Rufin.

Some examples of Mario Vargas Llosa’s connection with the French language are his influential essay “The perpetual orgy”, about the novel “Madame Bovary” by Gustave Flaubert; and the fact that he is one of the two living writers –the other is Milan Kundera– who is part of the collection of classics La Pléiade, by the French publisher Gallimard (although Kundera does have work written in French.

As an additional detail, it is noted that Vargas Llosa, also a member of the Royal Spanish AcademyIt would be the first Nobel Prize in Literature to form part of the French Academy since the death of François Mauriac.