Peruvian ambassador Miguel Urteaga, Peruvian writ ... ada, Spanish Centre director Jose Manuel Alba
The embassy of Peru in Egypt celebrated the literary connections between Nobel Prize–winning authors Mario Vargas Llosa and Naguib Mahfouz through a cultural seminar titled “A Dialogue on Mario Vargas Llosa and Naguib Mahfouz.”
The event also marked the 114th birth anniversary of Naguib Mahfouz.
It was attended by Peruvian Ambassador to Egypt Miguel Alemán Urteaga, Director of the Cervantes Institute (the Spanish Cultural Centre in Cairo) Jose Manuel Alba, students learning Spanish at the institute, and members of the Peruvian and Spanish communities in Egypt.
The seminar featured Peruvian writer and journalist Renato Cisneros, known for narrative works that blend memoir, reportage, and historical reflection.
Cisneros gained wide recognition with his 2015 novel The Distance Between Us, which was shortlisted for the Herralde Prize and received the Transfuge Prize for Best Latin American Book. His writing explores themes of family memory, identity, intimacy, and the ties between personal and national history.
His other notable works include Never Trust Me (2014), You Will Leave the Earth (2017), and One Day I’ll Show You the Desert (2023).
Two Egyptian academics also took part in the discussion. Hanaa El-Eidi, professor of Literature and head of the Spanish Language Department at Zagazig University, delivered a lecture titled “The City as a Microcosm of the Nation in the Works of Naguib Mahfouz and Mario Vargas Llosa: A Comparative Study.”
Taha Ziada, from the media office of the Spanish embassy and professor of Literary Translation at Cairo University, spoke on “Vargas Llosa and Naguib Mahfouz: Reading Magical Realism and Social Realism Through Two Nobel Laureates.”
Ziada compared how Egyptian and Peruvian audiences have received the works of Mahfouz and Vargas Llosa, examining the factors that shaped both praise and criticism of their novels.
He noted that Mahfouz’s commitment to social realism and his portrayal of Egypt’s social changes earned him wide public support, even as some works stirred controversy for their bold treatment of religious and intellectual themes.
Vargas Llosa, meanwhile, received strong literary acclaim in Peru and internationally, but his liberal political positions and his critiques of the country’s military and political establishment sparked backlash from parts of Peruvian society.
The study concludes that both writers encountered support and opposition for different reasons, highlighting the complex relationship between literary creativity and the social and political contexts in which it is received.
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