Home
Politics
"A writer must never turn into a statue" he told AFP in a 2009 interview. "I have never liked the idea of a writer stuck in his library, cut off from the world, like Proust was. I need to keep a foothold in reality, know what's going on. That's why I do journalism."
The Nobel committee honored Vargas Llosa for his body of work -- the historical novels, erotic romances, crime novellas, light-hearted comedies, plays, memoirs, and academic essays that he has written over the years.
"I will try to survive the Nobel Prize," the writer joked at a press conference. "It was a total surprise, I certainly didn't expect it."
But he said he did not expect the honor to change his approach to his craft.
"I will keep on writing until the last days of my life. I don't think the Nobel prize will change my writing, my style, my themes. What the Nobel prize will change ... transitorily I hope, is my daily life."
Unlike Colombia's Gabriel Garcia Marquez and other members of the so-called "boom" generation of Latin American writers, Vargas Llosa's writing rarely strays into the realm of magical realism.
One of the author's trademarks is his graphic descriptions of murders, rapes and other acts of violence, perhaps harkening back to his early days as a crime reporter for the Lima tabloid La Cronica.
One reviewer wrote that the "scenes of degradation" in his 2000 novel "The Feast of the Goat" had "a voyeuristic appeal."
Mario Vargas Llosa was born March 28, 1936 in the southern Peruvian city of Arequipa. He grew up in Bolivia, northern Peru, and in the capital Lima.
At 14, his family enrolled him in the Leoncio Prado Military Academy -- the setting of his first novel, "The Time of the Hero" (1962).
In 1955, at just 19, Vargas Llosa married his aunt, Julia Urquidi, who was 13 years his senior.
The socially scandalous marriage lasted until 1964, and was later fictionalized in the 1977 novel "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter." (Urquidi gave her own version in a 1983 book titled "What Little Vargas Did Not Tell.")
During that period Vargas Llosa studied literature and law in Lima and obtained a doctorate in literature from the University of Madrid.
He began his professional writing career as a newspaper and radio journalist while still a student in Peru.
Vargas Llosa used this experience to land a job as a journalist for Agence France-Presse and as a broadcaster for Radio Television Francaise when he moved to Paris in 1959.
"I was convinced that if I did not make it to Paris, I would never be a writer, that I had to live in Paris because Paris was the center of culture, of literature," he told AFP.
In 1965 he married his cousin Patricia Llosa, and the couple had three children.
Vargas Llosa's early novels include "The Green House" (1966), "Conversation in the Cathedral" (1969), and "Pantaleon and the Visitors" (1973), all set in Peru.
Later work took him beyond the Peruvian borders. "The War of the End of the World" (1981) is based on the Canudos millenarian uprising in late 19th century Brazil, while "The Feast of the Goat" (2000) deals with the mid-20th century dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic.
More recent novels include "The Way to Paradise" (2003) about impressionist painter Paul Gaugin and his grandmother, feminist Flora Tristan.
Vargas Llosa even traveled to Iraq in 2003 after US-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein, and wrote about his experience for the Spanish-language media.
This semester he is teaching his philosophy of writing at the prestigious Princeton University in New Jersey.
His next novel, due out in Spanish next month, is "The Dream of the Celt," set in Congo about gay British consul cum-Irish nationalist Roger Casement, who in 1904 published a first-hand report exposing the human rights abuses of colonialism in the Congo under Belgian King Leopold II. Casement was hung for treason in 1916.
Like most of Latin America's intelligentsia in the early 1960s, Vargas Llosa at first supported Fidel Castro's leftist regime in Cuba.
But the author soured towards Castro and broke with him in 1971 -- a move that resulted in a series of debates, both written and at conferences, with the likes of Garcia Marquez and German author Guenter Grass.
In 1990, Vargas Llosa, a free-market supporter who had never run for office, ran for president representing a coalition of conservative parties.
The famous author, however, proved a stiff candidate who lacked the common touch and lost to a savvy unknown academic of Japanese descent named Alberto Fujimori.
Disappointed by his defeat and upset at the dictatorial turn of Fujimori's 1990-2000 regime, Vargas Llosa took on Spanish nationality in 1993 -- a step that angered many Peruvians.
Prior to his Nobel win, Vargas Llosa had already been showered with literary awards, including the most prestigious of all for a Spanish-language author, the Cervantes Prize.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Nobel committee honored Vargas Llosa for his body of work -- the historical novels, erotic romances, crime novellas, light-hearted comedies, plays, memoirs, and academic essays that he has written over the years.
"I will try to survive the Nobel Prize," the writer joked at a press conference. "It was a total surprise, I certainly didn't expect it."
But he said he did not expect the honor to change his approach to his craft.
"I will keep on writing until the last days of my life. I don't think the Nobel prize will change my writing, my style, my themes. What the Nobel prize will change ... transitorily I hope, is my daily life."
Unlike Colombia's Gabriel Garcia Marquez and other members of the so-called "boom" generation of Latin American writers, Vargas Llosa's writing rarely strays into the realm of magical realism.
One of the author's trademarks is his graphic descriptions of murders, rapes and other acts of violence, perhaps harkening back to his early days as a crime reporter for the Lima tabloid La Cronica.
One reviewer wrote that the "scenes of degradation" in his 2000 novel "The Feast of the Goat" had "a voyeuristic appeal."
Mario Vargas Llosa was born March 28, 1936 in the southern Peruvian city of Arequipa. He grew up in Bolivia, northern Peru, and in the capital Lima.
At 14, his family enrolled him in the Leoncio Prado Military Academy -- the setting of his first novel, "The Time of the Hero" (1962).
In 1955, at just 19, Vargas Llosa married his aunt, Julia Urquidi, who was 13 years his senior.
The socially scandalous marriage lasted until 1964, and was later fictionalized in the 1977 novel "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter." (Urquidi gave her own version in a 1983 book titled "What Little Vargas Did Not Tell.")
During that period Vargas Llosa studied literature and law in Lima and obtained a doctorate in literature from the University of Madrid.
He began his professional writing career as a newspaper and radio journalist while still a student in Peru.
Vargas Llosa used this experience to land a job as a journalist for Agence France-Presse and as a broadcaster for Radio Television Francaise when he moved to Paris in 1959.
"I was convinced that if I did not make it to Paris, I would never be a writer, that I had to live in Paris because Paris was the center of culture, of literature," he told AFP.
In 1965 he married his cousin Patricia Llosa, and the couple had three children.
Vargas Llosa's early novels include "The Green House" (1966), "Conversation in the Cathedral" (1969), and "Pantaleon and the Visitors" (1973), all set in Peru.
Later work took him beyond the Peruvian borders. "The War of the End of the World" (1981) is based on the Canudos millenarian uprising in late 19th century Brazil, while "The Feast of the Goat" (2000) deals with the mid-20th century dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic.
More recent novels include "The Way to Paradise" (2003) about impressionist painter Paul Gaugin and his grandmother, feminist Flora Tristan.
Vargas Llosa even traveled to Iraq in 2003 after US-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein, and wrote about his experience for the Spanish-language media.
This semester he is teaching his philosophy of writing at the prestigious Princeton University in New Jersey.
His next novel, due out in Spanish next month, is "The Dream of the Celt," set in Congo about gay British consul cum-Irish nationalist Roger Casement, who in 1904 published a first-hand report exposing the human rights abuses of colonialism in the Congo under Belgian King Leopold II. Casement was hung for treason in 1916.
Like most of Latin America's intelligentsia in the early 1960s, Vargas Llosa at first supported Fidel Castro's leftist regime in Cuba.
But the author soured towards Castro and broke with him in 1971 -- a move that resulted in a series of debates, both written and at conferences, with the likes of Garcia Marquez and German author Guenter Grass.
In 1990, Vargas Llosa, a free-market supporter who had never run for office, ran for president representing a coalition of conservative parties.
The famous author, however, proved a stiff candidate who lacked the common touch and lost to a savvy unknown academic of Japanese descent named Alberto Fujimori.
Disappointed by his defeat and upset at the dictatorial turn of Fujimori's 1990-2000 regime, Vargas Llosa took on Spanish nationality in 1993 -- a step that angered many Peruvians.
Prior to his Nobel win, Vargas Llosa had already been showered with literary awards, including the most prestigious of all for a Spanish-language author, the Cervantes Prize.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
