SOURCE: Vargas Llosa, Mario, and Luis Rebaza-Soraluz. “Demons and Lies: Motivation and Form in Mario Vargas Llosa.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 17, no. 1 (spring 1997): 15-24.

In the following interview, Vargas Llosa discusses the influence of history and other authors on his work as well as explaining his personal view of fiction as the “secret reality.”

[Rebaza-Soraluz]: In García Márquez: Historia de un deicidio (García Márquez: Story of a Deicide), a book whose circulation—if I am not mistaken—you helped minimize, you developed your theories of “inner demons” and the “total novel.” What course have these ideas taken since then? Could you summarize your understanding of these ideas and explain how you see them now in relation to your narrative poetics?

[Vargas Llosa]: I continue to believe that the basic ideas expressed in that book, and in other books or essays I have written about...