Peruvian Nobel laureate and literary giant Mario Vargas Llosa has died at the age of 89 in Lima, Peru, surrounded by his family.
His death on Sunday was announced in a statement signed by his children, Álvaro, Gonzalo and Morgana Vargas Llosa.
Vargos Llosa “passed away peacefully in Lima … surrounded by his family”, they wrote.
“His departure will sadden his relatives, his friends and his readers around the world, but we hope that 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 will outlive him.”
Born on March 28, 1936, in Arequipa, Peru, Vargas Llosa was a central figure in the Latin American literary “Boom” of the 1960s and 1970s.
His acclaimed novels, including The Time of the Hero, The Green House, Conversation in the Cathedral, and The Feast of the Goat, often explored themes of power, corruption, and individual resistance.
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Initially sympathetic to leftist ideologies, Vargas Llosa later became a staunch advocate for liberal democracy, running unsuccessfully for the Peruvian presidency in 1990.
He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010 for his “cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat”.
His final novel, Le dedico mi silencio, was published in 2023, marking the end of a prolific literary career that spanned over five decades.
Vargas Llosa’s death marks the passing of one of the most influential voices in contemporary literature.
