Vargas Llosa and his censors

The first people to read the novels of Mario Vargas Llosa had numbers (4, 6, 12) and put their impressions in writing, in red pencil on the proofs, or in blunt judgments- “immoral, pornographic, obscene, Marxist, depraved.” Those comments now draw chuckles from the writer who on Friday will accept the Nobel Prize in Literature. These readers belonged to the Bibliographic Orientation Section, i.e. the censor’s office, a branch of the Ministry of Information that read and censored everything to be printed in Spain in the time of Franco’s regime.

EL PAÍS recently gained access to these historically valuable censors' reports in an archive belonging to the Culture Ministry. Original proofs, publishers' applications, dust-covers, letters and handwritten notations are all conserved in numbered folders. "Censorship was something anachronistic, an absurdity that not even the censors themselves believed in," said Vargas, who also met with problems in other countries. "In Peru they publicly burned La Ciudad y los perros (The Time of the Hero), but they didn't actually ban it."

'La ciudad y los perros' abounds in "words of the barrack-room and the brothel"

"I have not read anything better, in its class, in 25 or 30 years"

In Franco's Spain, prudish, clerical and militarized, the Peruvian writer's novel was a provocation, though there were also censors who saw its value and helped to save it from suppression.

LOS JEFES (1959) "Maricón and puta"

The first encounter with censors came in 1959. The publishing house Roca requested permission to print 1,300 copies of five short stories. The Peruvian author's first censor gave the green light, demanding only the suppression of certain "objectionable words." Mario Vargas Llosa substituted "soplón" (sneak) for "maricón" (queer), and "perra" (bitch) for "puta" (whore).

LA CIUDAD Y LOS PERROS (1963) "Fetid depravity"

Run: 3000 copies. Seix Barral. Carlos Barral, the publisher, presented the work that had won Vargas Llosa the Biblioteca Breve prize under the provisional title of Los impostores, planning a run of 3,000 copies. Reader no. 4 proposes its prohibition on account of "the salacious relish with which the author enters into the details of fetid juvenile depravity." He explains that it abounds in "words of the barrack-room and the brothel," with a "marked complacency" in "obscene descriptions."

Barral tried again, aiming higher in a call to the director of the chief censor, Carlos Robles Piquer. But the report of reader no. 27 was not much better: "Immoral literature. The commonest words are "mierda", "cojones", "joder" (shit, balls, fuck). The really bad passages have to be cut out [...] All of it is repellent in general, and in particular the frequent reference to queers, which says it all."

In the proofs the "really bad passages" are red-penciled out. But Carlos Barral patiently pulled more strings. José María Valverde, a university professor who had known Carlos Robles Piquer in their student days, and who had been on the jury that had awarded the Bibliteca Breve prize, wrote to the chief censor.

Valverde's letter to Piquer had something of prophesy about it: "We are looking at the best novel written in the Spanish language in quite some time. To be more exact, I have not read anything better, in its class, in 25 or 30 years." He defends the foul language: "It is a novel that is moral in effect and intention: to destroy the myth of adolescence as a golden, archangelic age," and asks the chief to read the original himself, which he did. Last Thursday Robles Piquer recalled that "my impression of the book was very positive. But my chief concern was what the army might think about it."

The writer then altered eight paragraphs, "which were unessential to the content of the book," said Vargas Llosa in a letter to Robles Piquer. He suppresses some terms, and softens passages. All this is done "without cheer or conviction," he adds, concluding with a defense of creative freedom: "I wish to fulfill an obligation of courtesy to you, who have shown me such kindness, but this does not modify my opposition in principle to censorship, convinced as I am that literary creation ought to be an eminently free act, with no limitations other than the author's own convictions." The book was finally given the green light.

LA CASA VERDE (1965) "The quality redeems the pornography"

Seix Barral applied for permission to print 4,000 copies. The reader José María Z. proposes suppressions in six paragraphs. "The book's literary quality and acute observation of social type redeem it from mere pornography. In spite of its scabrous subject matter it may be authorized, save a few corrections." It was authorized in January 1966.

CONVERSACIÓN EN LA CATEDRAL (1969) "Marxist, anticlerical, antimilitarist"

Run: 10,000 copies. Seix Barral. Reader no. 12 is inspired to produce a masterpiece of censor-prose. "A very well written novel, as is usual for Vargas Llosa. This novel is Marxist, anticlerical, antimilitarist and obscene. The essential problem is in the portrait of Peru and its oligarchies, the persecution of intellectuals, workers and peasants, the repression of leftist movements, the corruption, the vicious police attacks on the students, and so many other things that will certainly annoy the present government of Peru.

"There is in all this- together with a high literary quality, reflected in the mixed narration, that is, mixing dialogue with indirect narration and inner monologue - an intention that is obviously partial, exploited by the publisher to tacitly establish correlations and comparisons.

"I do not believe that this book can in any way be authorized but, pending other decision by a higher authority, and in order to avoid wearisome situations, I believe we ought to observe ADMINISTRATIVE SILENCE" (i.e., say nothing one way or the other). A handwritten note adds that publication cannot be prevented, in cases of "administrative silence."

The report on the second volume of the novel, read by the same censor, says that "The obscenity and eroticism are much softer, and the Marxist tone of the first volume seems to have disappeared [...] The whole of the novel can now pass."

PANTALEÓN Y LAS VISITADORAS (1973) "The whole book is sex"

Run: 100,000 copies. Seix Barral. Reports requested from two censors. The first admires Vargas Llosa, noting that "There is no offense here to the Spanish army." The second censor is, however, implacable. "This book can be understood in two ways: as a funny book, or a serious one. [...] If funny, it is effective as such and, though the theme is sexual, it cannot really be said to be pornographic. But the whole book is sex, so abounding that it isn't worth while crossing out individual words or passages. [...] If serious, then the ridicule of priests, and in particular of army chaplains, and of the army in general, has to be considered. [...] Whether to take it seriously or not is a decision incumbent on a higher authority. [...] However, the present reader recommends REFUSAL.

The public prosecutor Herrera finally allowed it but on the proviso that the "intolerable" cover was replaced by something less suggestive.

LA TÍA JULIA Y EL ESCRIBIDOR (1977) "Not objectionable"

Run: 30,000 copies. By now Franco had died and the censors' days were numbered, but new books still had to be submitted. Reader no. 26's report reads: "Example of Peruvian narrative, in Vargas Llosa's well-known tone, with many peculiar Latin American expressions. Not objectionable."