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Mario Vargas Llosa – the giant of Latin American literature – dies!
2025-04-14 11:47:18 / JETË
Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, who captivated readers with his intellectual rigor and lyrical prose for five decades and nearly became his country's president, died on Sunday at the age of 89.
He died in the country's capital Lima surrounded by his family and " in peace ," his son Alvaro Vargas Llosa told X, a well-known political commentator.
A leading light in the boom in 20th-century Latin American literature, Vargas Llosa won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010 for works such as “Aunt Julia and the Screenwriter,” “ Death in the Andes ,” and “ The War of the End of the World .”
But early on he abandoned the socialist ideas embraced by many of his peers, and his involvement in politics and conservative views annoyed much of Latin America's left-wing intellectual class, Reuters reports .
In 1990, he ran for president of Peru, saying he wanted to save his country from economic chaos and a Marxist uprising.
He lost in a runoff to Alberto Fujimori, a then-unknown agronomist and university professor who defeated the rebels but was later imprisoned for human rights crimes and corruption.
Frustrated by his defeat, the writer moved to Spain but remained influential in Latin America, sharply criticizing a new wave of hard-left leaders led by then-Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
In his dozens of novels, plays, and essays, Vargas Llosa told stories from different perspectives and experimented with form – moving back and forth in time and changing narrators.
His work transcended genres and established him as a fundamental figure in a generation of writers that led to a revival in Latin American literature in the 1960s.
His books often examined the unsettling relationships between leaders and their subjects. “The Feast of the Goat” (2000) details the brutal regime of Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo, while “The War of the World’s End” (1981) tells the true story of a fanatical preacher whose flock perishes in a deadly battle with the Brazilian army in the 1890s.
"His intellectual genius and his great work will remain an eternal legacy for future generations," Peruvian President Dina Boluarte said in a post on X, calling him "the most outstanding Peruvian of all time."
Born to middle-class parents in Arequipa, Peru, on March 28, 1936, Vargas Llosa often drew from personal experience and his family, sometimes introducing characters based on his own life into his tales.
His acclaimed debut novel, "The Time of the Hero" (1963), was loosely based on his teenage life as a cadet at a military academy in Lima, while his 1993 memoir, "A Fish in the Water," focused on his 1990 presidential run.
Other works expressed deep concern for his country. “The Storyteller” (1987) deals with the clash of indigenous and European cultures in Peru, while “Death in the Andes” (1993) recounts the horrific years of the Shining Path guerrilla movement.
" An author's work is nourished by his experience and, over the years, becomes richer ," Vargas Llosa told Reuters in an interview in Madrid in 2001.
As his range of experiences grew, Vargas Llosa experimented constantly. “The Bad Girl” (2006) was his first attempt at a love story and was widely regarded as one of his best.
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Nobel Prize in Literature winner, literary giant passes away
April 14, 07:43
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