The Peruvian writer and Nobel Prize winner for literature Mario Vargas Llosa has died at the age of 89 in Lima.
This was announced by his son Alvaro Vargas Llosa.
„We regret to inform you that our father, Mario Vargas Llosa, passed away peacefully today in Lima, surrounded by his family“, said a statement by the writer's son, published on his page on the social network X.
Mario Vargas Llosa was born in 1936 in Arequipa to a middle-class family. He was the only child of Ernesto Vargas Maldonado and Dar Llosa Ureta, who separated five months after their marriage.
Vargas Llosa spent his childhood with his mother in Cochabamba, Bolivia, where he studied at the local La Salle College. During the administration of José Luis Bustamante, Vargas Llosa's grandfather held an important political position in Piura, where he moved with his mother. In 1946, Mario Vargas Llosa went to Lima, where he met his father for the first time. His parents lived together for the following years. He studied at La Salle College in Lima, and in 1950, his father sent him to the Military Academy.
A year before graduating from the Military Academy, Vargas Llosa was already working as an amateur journalist. He left the academy and completed his education in Piura, where he worked for the local newspaper “La Industria“, while also staging his first play “The Escape of the Inca“ (“La Huida del Inca“). In 1953, he entered the National University “San Marcos“ in Lima, where he studied literature. In 1955, he married Julia Urquidi, the sister of his uncle's wife, who was 13 years older than him. Their relationship lasted for several years, after which in 1959 he went to Spain, where he prepared a doctoral thesis at the Complutense University in Madrid.
Mario Vargas Llosa became famous for his novel “The City and the Dogs“ (“La Ciudad y los Perros“; 1962). The book was widely acclaimed, and its author was hailed as one of the main representatives of the Latin American literary wave, along with Julio Cortázar, Carlos Fuentes, and Gabriel García Márquez. He solidified his reputation with the novel "The Green House" (1966), for which he received the first prize "Rómulo Gallegos" in competition with Juan Carlos Onetti and Gabriel García Márquez.
In 1965, Vargas Llosa married his first cousin Patricia Llosa, with whom he had three children. His eldest son, Álvaro Vargas Llosa, also became a writer.
In the 1980s, Mario Vargas Llosa became involved in political life and became an active supporter of economic liberalism.
In 1990 ran for president of Peru and lost the election to Alberto Fujimori. He later went to Spain and in 1993 he received Spanish citizenship, after which he returned to Lima. In 1994 he received the Miguel de Cervantes Prize for Spanish-language literature.
In 2010, Mario Vargas Llosa was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The prize from the Swedish Academy was given to him for his “mapping of power structures and his clear depiction of personal resilience, rebellion and defeat“.