Alvaro Vargas Llosa, who is Peruvian, found himself unexpectedly pulled by the fate of the heavens back to Lima which he’d generally so wanted to be away from. By a further mysterious sleight of hand, it was election weekend.

Vargas Llosa wrote - echoing something of what I had believed earlier - of the courage of Peruvians and the courage he felt coming to himself, as he joined the majority, in voting for the otherwise-dreaded Alan Garcia. It takes incredible courage to vote for a person like him, someone you hate, someone who’s done terrible things to you - to literally save democracy. That was the real meaning of Peru’s election and why it’s so meaningful to all of us here.

I found myself wiping tears as I read this, it’s incredible, personal, exquisite, and moving. Everything he writes is good, and everything he has been doing lately is better than the last but this occupies some other level, some brilliant halo of his awesome collection of works. It’s incredible.

It’s an absolutely fascinating description of what really went on in Peru this weekend and what really happened and what it really meant for him, in a must-read here.

Hat tip: Venezuela Today

Tags | Peru, Polls