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Mario Vargas Llosa

October 7, 2010 by · Comments Off on Mario Vargas Llosa 

Mario Vargas Llosa, (Reuters) – Mario Vargas Llosa, Peruvian author who helped the American literature on the world stage in the 1960’s, dazzled readers with a series of international bestsellers for the next four decades.

Vargas Llosa, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday, was also a prominent political columist unsuccessfully running for the presidency of Peru in 1990 as a conservative after switching from leftism. After the election he moved to Spain and became a Spanish citizen, but remained influential in Peru and returned there often.

In more than 30 novels, plays and essays, Vargas Llosa has developed his technique of storytelling from different points of view, sometimes separated by a space and time. His work crosses genres and established it as a key figure in the “boom” generation, which led to a resurgence of Latin American literature in the 1960’s.

Vargas Llosa called the frequency of personal experience. His acclaimed first novel, “The City and the Dogs” (1962), is loosely based on her teenage life in a military academy in Lima 1993, while his memoir, “A fish in water”, said his candidacy president in 1990.

“The work of an author draws from her own experience and, over the years, enriching,” Vargas Llosa told Reuters in an interview in Madrid in 2001.

As your range of experience grew, so did his writing. Vargas Llosa constantly experiments with form, perspective and their subjects. One of his last novels, “The Bad Girl” (2006), was his first attempt at a love story and was widely hailed as one of his best.

Born of middle-class parents in Arequipa, Peru on March 28, 1936, Vargas Llosa lived in Bolivia and Lima before moving to Spain to study literature. Made a home in Madrid, but retains citizenship and influence in Peru, where he wrote for national newspapers on topical issues. His work was translated into over 20 languages.

FIDEL CASTRO REPORTED

In the 1970s, Vargas Llosa, one-time follower of the Cuban revolution, denounced the communism of Fidel Castro, many of his colleagues maddening literary left.

Some never forgave him adrift on the right. He became a strong advocate of free markets is mixed with liberalism, which express a deep faith in democracy and hatred of the authoritarian regimes.

In 1971 Vargas Llosa published a study by Gabriel García Márquez, Colombia captain of magical realism. But the two had a famous falling out, throwing punches outside a theater in Mexico City in 1976. A friend of Garcia Marquez – who also won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982 – said Vargas Llosa was upset that the Colombian had comforted his wife for a distance, but Vargas Llosa refused to talk about it invites speculation without end.

In 1990, Vargas Llosa had its public policy and ran for the presidency of Peru, strict economic reforms by promoting free market. Lost to Alberto Fujimori, a university professor then unknown and was later accused of human rights crimes committed during his presidency of 10 years.

“Actually, I never had a political career,” he said. “I have been involved in politics in very special circumstances … and I always said if I won or lost the election, I was going back to my literary, intellectual, not political.”

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