"You cannot teach creativity - how to become a good writer. But you can help a young writer discover within himself what kind of writer he would like to be"
About this Quote
Vargas Llosa is taking a scalpel to the cottage industry of “how to write” instruction: not because craft is fake, but because the most prized part of writing isn’t transferable like a recipe. The opening line is deliberately blunt - almost heretical in an era that markets creativity as a teachable skill, packaged into workshops, MFAs, and productivity systems. He’s defending the stubborn mystery at the center of art: imagination can be sharpened, but it can’t be installed.
The pivot matters more than the provocation. “But you can help” shifts the teacher’s role from technician to midwife. The goal isn’t to manufacture “a good writer” (a supposedly universal standard) but to guide a young writer toward self-knowledge: what kind of writer they want to be. That phrase smuggles in ethics and aesthetics at once. Do you want to be a reporter of social reality, a builder of labyrinths, a stylist, a moralist, a comedian, a provocateur? For Vargas Llosa - a novelist whose career moved between political commitment and artistic autonomy - that choice is a life posture, not a genre preference.
The subtext is a warning against imitation and credential-chasing. Writing education can accidentally produce competent clones: clean sentences, correct structures, zero interior necessity. He’s arguing that the real apprenticeship is identity formation: finding your obsessions, your risks, your limits, your voice. Craft can be taught; desire can’t. A mentor’s best work is helping a student hear the difference.
The pivot matters more than the provocation. “But you can help” shifts the teacher’s role from technician to midwife. The goal isn’t to manufacture “a good writer” (a supposedly universal standard) but to guide a young writer toward self-knowledge: what kind of writer they want to be. That phrase smuggles in ethics and aesthetics at once. Do you want to be a reporter of social reality, a builder of labyrinths, a stylist, a moralist, a comedian, a provocateur? For Vargas Llosa - a novelist whose career moved between political commitment and artistic autonomy - that choice is a life posture, not a genre preference.
The subtext is a warning against imitation and credential-chasing. Writing education can accidentally produce competent clones: clean sentences, correct structures, zero interior necessity. He’s arguing that the real apprenticeship is identity formation: finding your obsessions, your risks, your limits, your voice. Craft can be taught; desire can’t. A mentor’s best work is helping a student hear the difference.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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