Dan Gelfand/The Hoya University President Leo J. O’Donovan, S.J., and Mario Vargas Llosa on Friday.

Renowned Latin-American author and Peruvian politician Mario Vargas Llosa will teach an undergraduate and graduate course in fall 2001 as the University’s first Ibero-American Literature and Culture Chair in the Spanish and Portuguese Department.

The novelist will hold the chair, which has been endowed with approximately $2 million from family donors, for at least five years beginning in next fall. Vargas Llosa may not teach courses every semester, according to Serafina Hager, Special Assistant to the Provost for International Initiatives, and the chief individual behind recruiting Vargas Llosa.

“Having such a great writer . will encourage new faculty members and students to join Georgetown,” Hager said. She added that not many universities have the honor of possessing such a distinguished individual as a faculty member and that the addition will move the university in a positive direction.

Vargas Llosa said that the responsibility of the chair is to promote Latin American culture and literature within the university community.

“What is important about the new chair is that it reflects the growing interest in Latin American culture and literature in the academic world,” Vargas Llosa said.

The author’s novels, essays and plays, which have been translated into more than 20 languages, are internationally recognized for calling attention to the beauty of the Latin American culture and the significance of literature.

“[The chair] is also a reflection of the growing . presence of Latin American culture in the U.S.,” Vargas Llosa added. “This presence is very enriching for the U.S. and for Latin America because it breaches a growing relationship between the two cultures.”

Recognized as one of the world’s greatest living Spanish authors, Vargas Llosa taught as a visiting professor at Georgetown in 1994 and served as a Parker Distinguished Writer-in-Residence in 1999. During that time, Hager said she established a strong relationship with the author and later spoke to him about becoming more involved with the university.

Thomas Walsh, Chair of the Spanish and Portuguese Department, praised the author’s dedication and skill as a professor, noting his courses were extremely well liked by students.

“Having [Vargas Llosa] here at the department and at Georgetown is a humbling and exhilarating experience,” he said.

In a presentation entitled “Life and Literature” in the ICC Auditorium Friday, Vargas Llosa discussed the important role of literature, enumerating the ways in which it serves as the common denominator for the human experience.

“Nothing teaches us better than literature to see, in ethnic and cultural differences, the richness of human patrimony and to value those differences as a manifestation of humanity’s multi-faceted creativity,” he said to the full audience.