The failure of the great day of Isabel Preysler and Mario Vargas Llosa

There were reasons and, if not, they were looking for. That if a decade of the award of the Nobel, that if the 85 years that Mario himself turned, although in reality the birthday had been in March, that if tell the new objectives of the chair, that if promote friendship and Spanish gastronomy and the Peruvian... But, above all, to support him for having been accused of evading taxes in the Pandora Papers, which revealed that he had had a company in a tax haven to manage his substantial copyright. Let's not forget that, in 1999, Vargas Llosa was given the highest contract ever paid to a writer: 200 million pesetas. Although he said that he had dissolved this company years ago, his denial barely occupied a few lines in the press and hence the need for that public support.

Isabel warmly supported this initiative, despite the fact that she is not enthusiastic about social life and she has just lost her mother, but the couple cannot do enough for each other. Although the three children of Julio Iglesias did not attend, Tamara and Ana were. Their presence guaranteed a place at least in gossip magazines, those that Mario defined as “sewer journalism that only deals with gossip and private life. The triumph of vulgarity and the snobbery of idiocy”, in his pre-Preysler stage (he says so in his essay 'The civilization of the spectacle'). But the glittering guests began to fail, one by one, with different excuses... Well, the guests thing is saying something, because the organizers clarified that the party was actually an American-style act to collect funds for the chair Vargas Llosa. The ticket cost 1,000 euros per person and 20,000 euros for the full table, although that price included that the Nobel Prize winner would stop for a moment to speak personally with them and take photos. If they also wanted to attend a couple of the writer's conferences somewhere in the world, the amount would be different. It is not known whether there were numerous casualties due to having to pay or for another reason.

The big day has arrived. A 'photocall' was set up at the entrance to the farm that said "Cátedra" (in small) "Vargas Llosa" (in large), as if it were a shoe brand, to leave no doubt that it was not about a particular celebration, but of a publicity event. Soccer players such as Simeone, the bullfighter Roca Rey, singers such as del Río and the senior staff on the right posed there, Casado, Rivera, Esperanza Aguirre, Ana Botella, Toni Cantó, Almeida... The Efe agency, which covered the event, He said: "All of them covered Vargas Llosa, whose name appeared as a tax evader in Pandora's papers." writers? Yes, Boris Izaguirre, but it must be made clear that he went because he is a close friend of Isabel. He was also at Vargas Llosa's eightieth birthday, which was celebrated at the Villamagna hotel in Madrid five years ago, and then people were invited to a dinner that apparently cost 70,000 euros. Mario was then at the height of literary, political and social stardom, he mobilized floods of photographers and onlookers to the point that four police vehicles had to be moved to the hotel. Felipe González, Aznar, ministers García Margallo and Soria, four former Latin American presidents, writers from Rosa Montero to Álvaro Pombo, ambassadors, special greetings from the King and Queen and then President Rajoy... Isabel, resplendent in a silver dress, received with emotion the words of her beloved: “I have finally learned that the word 'happiness' has a first and last name, Isabel Preysler”. The dinner occupied several pages of the most substantial Spanish and foreign newspapers: “Eighty years in fullness”.

This time, however, the participants had less substance and the speeches too, at least that of the son of the Nobel Prize winner. According to Vozpópuli, alluding to the name of the farm, Álvaro Vargas Llosa said: "I have learned that rockroses are a hermaphrodite plant, a very important fact in these times of great concern about gender issues," a joke that those gathered celebrated much. Mario went out of his way to attend to everyone – but he is no longer a child (he had gotten up as always at half past five in the morning and the party dragged on endlessly in the suffocating heat) – speaking to the media, aperitif, conference, bullfighting, flamenco, food, more music... At closing time, the exhausted hosts said goodbye to the last attendees very politely, but with hoarse voices from exhaustion. Meanwhile, on the same day, almost 700 kilometers away, in Barcelona, ​​at the Planeta Prize, kings, journalists and the cream of the Spanish intellectual world raised their glass toasting culture. Boris was there too.