Who was Mario Vargas LLosa? Nobel Prize winning Peruvian writer and politician dies at 89

Nobel Prize winning Peruvian writer and politician Mario Vargas LLosa has died, his son Alvaro Vasgas Llosa revealed on X. He was 89.

Who was Mario Vargas LLosa? Nobel Prize winning Peruvian writer and politician dies at 89 (Nobel Prize screenshot/YouTube)

It is with deep sorrow that we announce that our father, Mario Vargas LLosa, passed away peacefully in Lima today, surrounded by his family,” Alvaro wrote. “His departure will sadden his relatives, his friends and his readers around the world, but we hope they will find comfort, as we do, in the fact that he enjoyed a long, adventurous and fruitful life, and leaves behind him a body of work that outlive him.”

He added, “We will proceed in the coming hours and days in accordance with his instructions. No public ceremony will take place. Our mother, our children and ourselves trust that we will have the space and privacy to bid him farewell in the company of family members and close friends. As was his will, his remains will be cremated.”

Llosa’s cause of death was not revealed.

Who was Mario Vargas LLosa?

Llosa was born into a middle-class family in Arequipa, Peru, according to nobelprize.org. After his parents divorced, the young boy grew up with his mother and maternal grandparents in Bolivia. There, his grandfather worked as a consular officer.

Llosa’s interest in poetry developed at an early age. Even though his father enrolled him in a military academy, he went on to follow his instincts in literature and become a writer. He was politically active too, and ran as a candidate in the Peruvian presidential election of 1990.

Llosa’s works comprise novels, plays, essays, literary criticisms, and journalism. 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” back in 2010. 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. He was elected to the Académie française in 2021.