Mario Vargas Llosa was a daring truth-teller. He was also my friend.
The first time I telephoned Mario Vargas Llosa, it was to tell him that a man with a gruff voice, who identified himself only as working for the Peruvian Consulate in New York, had called to ask exactly where Mario would be sitting at a prize ceremony that evening. It was the spring of 1997, the National Book Critics Circle was about to give him an award for his essay collection 'Making Waves,' and it struck me as an odd question. Why hadn't the consulate called Mario directly? Why wouldn't the man give me his name? And why in the world did he want to know the exact seat where Mario would be found?
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