Mario Vargas Llosa: Literature, Feminism & Art in Mario Vargas Llosa's

Offered through the Cátedra Mario Vargas Llosa and the Department of Classical and Modern Languages and Literatures at The City College, CUNY, with the cooperation of the Instituto Cervantes, this one (1) credit seminar focuses on Mario Vargas Llosa’s El paraíso en la otra esquina [The Way to Paradise] (2003). This novel revolves around two non-fictional characters, the Peruvian Flora Tristán (1803-1844) -- a binational writer and activist who has been called the first feminist of the Americas -- and her grandson, the French painter Paul Gauguin (1848-1903). The seminar, taught by Carmen Boullosa, the internationally acclaimed Mexican writer, and Distinguished Professor Raquel Chang-Rodríguez, will compare the two characters’ attitudes towards artistic creation, money, social institutions, notions of modernity, and “Primitivism.” To do so, it will examine Flora Tristán’s memoirs, Peregrinaciones de una paria (1838), explore some of Gauguin´s paintings, and consider Vargas Llosa’s approach to narrative strategy as presented in his essays on the art of the Novel.