Mario Vargas Llosa: More than enough atomic and conventional weapons to wipe out several planets

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

Latin American writers on war and peace

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Mario Vargas Llosa
From address given upon receiving the Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels in 1996

I can state for two reasons that if literature does not continue to play this role as it did in the past – refusing to be merely light entertainment, becoming once again ‘committed,’ trying to open people’s eyes, through words and fantasy, to the reality that surrounds them – it will be more difficult to contain the outbreaks of wars, killings, genocides, ethnic conflict, religious struggles, refugee displacements and terrorism which threaten to proliferate, destroying the hopes for a peaceful world…

The first reason for literature’s continuing moral importance is the urgent need to mobilize public opinion to demand that democratic governments take resolute action to support peace…

Writers can contribute to this task, as they did so often in the past, when they still believed that literature was not mere entertainment but also a way of raising concerns, sounding the alarm and guiding people to act for a good cause. The survival of the species and culture are a good cause…

Previously we wondered whether the great confrontation of the Cold War would turn hot and consume the world in the great holocaust of a single apocalyptic conflict between East and West. Now it is about knowing whether the death of civilization will be slower and more decentered, the result of a succession of many regional and national wars provoked by ideological, religious and ethnic factors, and by crude ambitions for power. The lethal arms are there and are still being manufactured. There are more than enough atomic and conventional weapons to wipe out several planets, along with our own small planet…