Vargas Llosa and French Culture Again

I could not stop myself from commenting again on the defense of the director of the French Academy, Helen Carrere, for accepting the academy membership of the Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, and she said that she does not know anyone who speaks better than Llosa about the French novelist Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), the author of the famous novel &” Madame Bovary&”, and she also said that the author of “The Goat’s Party” has helped French culture more than a large number of French writers.

First, let’s start from the last note, which is the role of Vargas Llosa in introducing French culture and his direct contribution to it to a higher degree than a large number of French writers.

Helen Carrier said these words forcefully and frankly, and she was not afraid of the wrath of French writers against her or Vargas Llosa himself, who sat last Thursday afternoon on one of the highest seats in the academy, whose foundation dates back to the year 1635.

We have not yet read, and probably will not read, any convulsive statements on the part of French writers because the powerful Mrs. Carrier said that Llosa served the culture of their country more than them, and it will not be a wave of anger of a racist nature in most cases, because the culture of these French people is completely different from the culture of some writers The world is described by dangerous terms such as chauvinism, intolerance, and the abolition of the other… and other descriptions that indicate the meaning of confiscating opinion and freedom of expression, but, if you want the truth, a writer of Milan Kundera’s stature served French literature more than Vargas Llosa. The writer of Czech origin writes today and yesterday in French, and his novels in this language such as “The Lightness of Being” and “Life Elsewhere” invaded the world’s literature and publishing markets, however, he did not have a share of the seats of the French Academy.

Carrere said that she does not know anyone who talks about Flaubert better than Vargas Llosa, and I do not know here what is the matter with some of our Arab writers and poets who have been living in France since the seventies and eighties of the twentieth century until today? Do these or some of them not speak of Flaubert better than Vargas Llosa, while the Arabs, perhaps, know Flaubert more than any other people?

Gustave Flaubert published his famous novel “Madame Bovary” in the year 1857, and it was translated into Arabic by more than one translator: Muhammad Mandour, Rehab Akkawi, Helmy Murad, and Wafiq Safwat Mukhtar, for example, and whoever did not read the novel, which is indeed a major literary sign, watched it in more than Universal movie.

For a moment, you have the feeling that Mario Vargas Llosa made propaganda for Flaubert and his novels after more than 140 years of a French literary phenomenon that is considered a cultural privilege for those who read it in its language or in other world languages.