Mario Vargas Llosa

Peruvian novelist

Date of Birth	:	28 Mar, 1936
Place of Birth	:	Arequipa, Peru
Profession	:	Author, Journalist, Novelist, Politician
Nationality	:	Dominican, Peruvian, Spanish
Social Profiles	:	Twitter Instagram

Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquess of Vargas Llosa, more commonly known as Mario Vargas Llosa (/ˌvɑːrɡəs ˈjoʊsə/ Spanish: [ˈmaɾjo ˈβaɾɣas ˈʎosa]), is a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist and former politician. Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists and one of the leading writers of his generation. Some critics consider him to have had a larger international impact and worldwide audience than any other writer of the Latin American Boom. In 2010, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat. He also won the 1967 Rómulo Gallegos Prize, the 1986 Prince of Asturias Award, the 1994 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1995 Jerusalem Prize, the 2012 Carlos Fuentes International Prize, and the 2018 Pablo Neruda Order of Artistic and Cultural Merit. In 2021, he was elected to the Académie française.

Vargas Llosa rose to international fame in the 1960s with novels such as The Time of the Hero (La ciudad y los perros, literally The City and the Dogs, 1963/1966), The Green House (La casa verde, 1965/1968), and the monumental Conversation in the Cathedral (Conversación en la catedral, 1969/1975). He writes, prolifically, across an array of literary genres, including literary criticism and journalism. His novels include comedies, murder mysteries, historical novels, and political thrillers. Several, such as Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (1973/1978) and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977/1982), have been adapted as feature films.

Early life and family

Mario Vargas Llosa was born to a middle-class family on 28 March 1936, in the southern Peruvian provincial city of Arequipa. He was the only child of Ernesto Vargas Maldonado and Dora Llosa Ureta (the former a radio operator in an aviation company, the latter the daughter of an old criollo family), who separated a few months before his birth. Shortly after Mario's birth, his father revealed that he was having an affair with a German woman. Consequently, Mario has two younger half-brothers: Enrique and Ernesto Vargas.

Writing career

Vargas Llosa's first novel, The Time of the Hero (La ciudad y los perros), was published in 1963. The book is set among a community of cadets in a Lima military school, and the plot is based on the author's own experiences at Lima's Leoncio Prado Military Academy. This early piece gained wide public attention and immediate success. Its vitality and adept use of sophisticated literary techniques immediately impressed critics, and it won the Premio de la Crítica Española award. Nevertheless, its sharp criticism of the Peruvian military establishment led to controversy in Peru. Several Peruvian generals attacked the novel, claiming that it was the work of a "degenerate mind" and stating that Vargas Llosa was "paid by Ecuador" to undermine the prestige of the Peruvian Army.

Political career

Like many other Latin American intellectuals, Vargas Llosa was initially a supporter of the Cuban revolutionary government of Fidel Castro. He studied Marxism in depth as a university student and was later persuaded by communist ideals after the success of the Cuban Revolution. Gradually, Vargas Llosa came to believe that socialism was incompatible with what he considered to be general liberties and freedoms. The official rupture between the writer and the policies of the Cuban government occurred with the so-called 'Padilla Affair', when the Castro regime imprisoned the poet Heberto Padilla for a month in 1971. Vargas Llosa, along with other intellectuals of the time, wrote to Castro protesting the Cuban political system and its imprisonment of the artist. Vargas Llosa has identified himself with liberalism rather than extreme left-wing political ideologies ever since. Since he relinquished his earlier leftism, he has opposed both left- and right-wing authoritarian regimes.

Later personal life and interests

Vargas Llosa wearing a cap from Universitario de Deportes, the peruvian soccer team he has been a fan since his youth.

He has declared himself a music lover, ensuring that feels a special fondness for Gustav Mahler.

As for hobbies, he is fond of association football and is a supporter of Universitario de Deportes. The writer himself has confessed in his book A Fish in the Water since childhood he has been a fan of the 'cream colored' team from Peru, which was first seen in the field one day in 1946 when he was only 10 years old. In February 2011, Vargas Llosa was awarded an honorary life membership of this football club, in a ceremony which took place in the Monumental Stadium of Lima.

Starting in 2015, Vargas Llosa was in a relationship with Filipina Spanish socialite and TV personality Isabel Preysler and divorced his first cousin Patricia Llosa. In December 2022, it was announced Vargas Llosa and Preysler had split up.

He was infected with COVID-19 and was hospitalized in April 2022.

Awards and Honors

Vargas Llosa has won numerous awards for his writing, from the 1959 Premio Leopoldo Alas and the 1962 Premio Biblioteca Breve to the 1993 Premio Planeta (for Death in the Andes) and the Jerusalem Prize in 1995. The literary critic Harold Bloom has included his novel The War of the End of the World in his list of essential literary works in the Western Canon.

An important distinction he has received is the 1994 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, considered the most important accolade in Spanish-language literature and awarded to authors whose "work has contributed to enrich, in a notable way, the literary patrimony of the Spanish language". In 2002, Vargas was the recipient of the PEN/Nabokov Award. Vargas Llosa also received the 2005 Irving Kristol Award from the American Enterprise Institute and was the 2008 recipient of the Harold and Ethel L. Stellfox Visiting Scholar and Writers Award at Dickinson College.

On 7 October 2010 the Swedish Academy announced that the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Vargas Llosa "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat. The decision to award Vargas Llosa the Nobel Prize in Literature was well received around the world.

On 18 November 2010, Vargas Llosa received the honorary degree Degree of Letters from the City College of New York of the City University of New York, where he also delivered the President's Lecture.

On 4 February 2011, Vargas Llosa was raised into the Spanish nobility by King Juan Carlos I with the hereditary title of Marqués de Vargas Llosa (Marquess of Vargas Llosa).

On 25 November 2021, Vargas Llosa was elected to the Académie française.