Peruvian writer and Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa has died in the Peruvian capital Lima surrounded by his family, according to a statement issued by his children. The writer was 89.
“His death will upset his relatives, friends and readers around the world, but we hope that they, like us, will find comfort in the fact that he lived a long, varied and fruitful life and left behind writings that will outlive him,” the writer’s children wrote.
Mario Vargas Llosa was born in southern Peru in 1936. As a teenager, he worked as a night reporter for the daily newspaper La Crónica. His debut novel The City and the Dogs was published in 1963. In 1969 came the novel Conversation in a ‘cathedral’, which, according to The New York Times, reflected elements of Llosa’s newspaper experience. Other well-known works include “The Green House”, “Captain Pantaleon Pantoja and the Company of Good Services”, “Aunt Julia and the Scribe”, “The War of the End of the World”, “Celt’s Dream” and others.
In 1990, Mario Vargas Llosa ran for President of Peru, but lost to Alberto Fujimori. After 1990, Llosa lived mostly outside Peru in London and Madrid, where he also obtained Spanish citizenship.
In 2010, Mario Vargas Llosa won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his cartography of power structures and his poignant portrayal of human resistance, rebellion and defeat.