Peruvian Novelist Mario Vargas Llosa’s Pugilistic Moment with Gabo 50 Years Ago

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Issue Feb 11-17 2026: On February 12, 1976, just over 50 years ago, a movie was screened at Mexico’s Palacio de Bellas Artes depicting the crash, four years earlier, of a plane filled with Uruguayan rugby players as they crossed a mountain range. Twelve of the passengers died, while the remainder, stranded in the remote, inhospitable locale, managed to survive the snow and sub-zero temperatures for 72 days. At the screening was Gabriel García Márquez, who was waiting for his close friend, Peruvian fellow novelist Mario Vargas Llosa. As the former stood to embrace Vargas Llosa, the latter exclaimed, “for what you said to Patricia,” and then landed a swift hook to the Colombian’s face, leaving him bleeding and half-conscious to the astonishment of witnesses.

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