The children of Columbus.

• Author: Vargas Llosa, Mario

From violent conquest to common culture

The novel was forbidden in the Spanish colonies by the Inquisition. The Inquisitors considered this literary genre as dangerous for the spiritual fate of the Indians as for the moral and political behavior of society, and in this, of course, they were absolutely right. We novelists must be grateful to the Spanish Inquisition for having discovered, before any critic did, the inevitably subversive nature of fiction. The prohibition included reading and publishing novels in the colonies. Naturally, there was no way to prevent a great number of novels from being smuggled into our countries and we know, for example, that the first copies of Don Quixote entered America hidden in barrels of wine. We can only dream with envy about the kind of experience it was, in those times, in Spanish America, to read a novel: a sinful adventure on account of which, by dating to abandon yourself to an imaginary world, you had to be prepared to face prison and humiliation.

Novels were not published in Spanish America until after the Wars of Independence. The first, El Periquillo Sarniento, appeared in Mexico only in 1816. Although novels were abolished for three centuries, the goal of the Inquisitors--a society exonerated from the fictional disease--was not achieved.

They did not realize that the realm of fiction was larger and deeper than that of the novel. Nor could they imagine that the appetite for lies--that is. for escaping objective reality through illusions--was so powerful and rooted in the human spirit, that, once the novel as a medium for satisfying that appetite was gone, the thirst for fiction would infect, like a plague. all the other disciplines and genres in which the written word could freely flow. In repressing and censoring the literary genre specifically invented to give "the necessity of lying" a place: in the world, the Inquisitors achieved exactly the opposite of what they wanted. Theirs was a world without novels, yes, but also a world into which fiction had spread and contaminated practically everything: history, religion, poetry, science, art, speeches, journalism, and the daily habits of people.

We still are victims, in Latin America, of what we could call "the revenge of the novel." We still have great difficulty in our countries in differentiating between fiction and reality. We are traditionally accustomed to mix them in such a way that this is, probably, one of the reasons why we are so impractical and inept in political matters, for instance. But some good came also from this novelization of our whole life. Books such as Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. Cortazar's short stories, and Roa Bastos's novels would not have been possible otherwise.

The tradition from which this kind of literature sprang, one in which we are exposed to a world totally subverted by fantasy, began, without doubt, with those chroniclers of the conquest and discovery that I read and glossed under the direction of that great historian of Spanish America, Raul Porras Barrenechea. Whenever Porras Barrenechea spoke, history became anecdote, gesture, adventure, color, psychology. He depicted history in a series of murals which had the magnificence of a Renaissance painting, and in which the determining factor of events was never impersonal forces. the geographical imperative, economic relations, or divine providence--but rather the case of certain outstanding individuals whose audacity, genius, charisma, or contagious insanity had imposed on each era and society a certain orientation and shape.

I have been thinking a lot about Porras Barrenechea lately, particularly since 1992, which was, as you might remember, a commemorative year, the Quincentenary, which recalls a turning point in world history. Some would rather forget, but I think we ought to remember that just about 500 years ago Christopher Columbus's caravels first set sail and arrived on what would be called America, initiating waves of European and African immigrations. It is appropriate to reflect upon Columbus's voyage and its aftermath because just about everything good, and some of the bad, that has happened ever since has its roots in this episode. It shook up geography, economy, religion, morality, and the imagination of humanity; and it changed the course of history like probably nothing before it except, perhaps, the biblical flood.

Jorge Luis Borges once wrote regarding patriotism that "only affirmations are tolerated." Regarding the Quincentenary, it seems only contradictions were tolerated. A heated discussion preceded the Quincentenary, during which some rejected the idea of a commemoration wholesale, while others were willing to agree to it provided it served primarily to publicize the pillage committed by discoverers, conquistadors, and colonizers. The Quincentenary produced a curious controversy, with prosecutors of all shapes and sizes but few defenders.

Some of the harshest detractors have been Spaniards and Portuguese who have raised their angry...