69 Facts About Mario Vargas Llosa

Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquess of Vargas Llosa, more commonly known as Mario Vargas Llosa, was a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist, and politician.

Vargas Llosa was one of the most significant Latin American novelists and essayists and one of the leading writers of his generation.

Vargas Llosa rose to international fame in the 1960s with novels such as The Time of the Hero, The Green House, and the monumental Conversation in The Cathedral.

Mario Vargas Llosa wrote prolifically across various literary genres, including literary criticism and journalism.

Mario Vargas Llosa's novels include comedies, murder mysteries, historical novels, and political thrillers.

Mario Vargas Llosa won the 1967 Romulo Gallegos Prize and the 1986 Prince of Asturias Award.

Mario Vargas Llosa ran for the presidency of Peru with the centre-right Democratic Front coalition in the 1990 election, advocating for liberal reforms, but lost the election to Alberto Fujimori in a landslide.

Vargas Llosa continued his literary career while advocating for right-wing activists and candidates internationally following his exit from direct participation in Peruvian politics.

Mario Vargas Llosa was awarded the 1994 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1995 Jerusalem Prize, the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature, the 2012 Carlos Fuentes Prize, and the 2018 Pablo Neruda Order of Artistic and Cultural Merit.

In 2011, Vargas Llosa was made Marquess of Vargas Llosa by the Spanish king Juan Carlos I In 2021, he was elected to the Academie Francaise.

Mario Vargas Llosa was born to a middle-class family on 28 March 1936, in the southern Peruvian provincial city of Arequipa.

Mario Vargas Llosa was the only child of Ernesto Vargas Maldonado and Dora Llosa Ureta, who separated a few months before his birth.

Vargas Llosa lived with his maternal family in Arequipa until a year after his parents divorced, when his maternal grandfather was named honorary consul for Peru in Bolivia.

Mario Vargas Llosa's parents re-established their relationship and lived in Magdalena del Mar, a middle-class Lima suburb, during his teenage years.

When Vargas Llosa was fourteen, his father sent him to the Leoncio Prado Military Academy in Lima.

At the age of 16, before his graduation, Vargas Llosa began working as a journalist for local newspapers.

In 1953, during the government of Manuel A Odria, Vargas Llosa enrolled in Lima's National University of San Marcos, to study law and literature.

Vargas Llosa began his literary career in earnest, in 1957, with the publication of his first short stories, "The Leaders" and "The Grandfather", while working for two Peruvian newspapers.

In 1960, after his scholarship in Madrid had expired, Vargas Llosa moved to France, under the impression that he would receive a scholarship to study there.

Nevertheless, its sharp criticism of the Peruvian military establishment led to controversy in Peru: several generals attacked the novel, claiming that it was the work of a "degenerate mind" and stating that Vargas Llosa was "paid by Ecuador" to undermine the prestige of the Peruvian Army.

In 1965, Vargas Llosa published his second novel, The Green House, about a brothel called "The Green House" and how its quasi-mythical presence affects the lives of the characters.

Vargas Llosa lectured on Spanish American Literature at King's College London from 1969 to 1970.

In 1971, Vargas Llosa published Garcia Marquez: Story of a Deicide, which was his doctoral thesis for the Complutense University of Madrid.

In 1976, Vargas Llosa punched Garcia Marquez in the face at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, ending the friendship.

From 1974 to 1987, Vargas Llosa focused on his writing, but took the time to pursue other endeavours.

In 1977, Vargas Llosa was elected as a member of the Peruvian Academy of Language.

Vargas Llosa said that this book was his favourite and was his most difficult accomplishment.

Later the same year, during the Sendero Luminoso uprising, Vargas Llosa was asked by President Fernando Belaunde Terry to join the Investigatory Commission, a task force to inquire into the massacre of eight journalists at the hands of the villagers of Uchuraccay.

In 2006, Vargas Llosa wrote The Bad Girl, which journalist Kathryn Harrison argues is a rewrite of Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary.

Mario Vargas Llosa studied Marxism in depth as a university student and was later persuaded by communist ideals after the success of the Cuban Revolution.

Gradually, Vargas Llosa came to believe that socialism was incompatible with what he considered to be general liberties and freedoms.

Vargas Llosa identified himself with liberalism rather than extreme left-wing political ideologies thereafter.

Unfortunately for Vargas Llosa, his involvement with the Investigatory Commission led to immediate negative reactions and defamation from the Peruvian press; many suggested that the massacre was a conspiracy to keep the journalists from reporting the presence of government paramilitary forces in Uchuraccay.

Vargas Llosa was accused of actively colluding in a government cover-up of army involvement in the massacre.

Mario Vargas Llosa ran for the presidency of Peru in 1990 as the candidate of the FREDEMO coalition with the support of the United States.

Vargas Llosa included an account of his run for the presidency in the memoir A Fish in the Water.

Vargas Llosa mainly lived in Madrid from the 1990s onwards, but spent roughly three months of the year in Peru with his extended family.

Mario Vargas Llosa frequently visited London where he occasionally spent long periods.

Vargas Llosa acquired Spanish citizenship in 1993, though he still held Peruvian nationality.

Vargas Llosa was named in both the Panama Papers and Pandora Papers released by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Vargas Llosa frequently used his writing to challenge the inadequacies of society, such as demoralization and oppression by those in political power towards those who challenge this power.

The Feast of the Goat, based on the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, takes place in the Dominican Republic; in preparation for this novel, Vargas Llosa undertook a comprehensive study of Dominican history.

Unfortunately, Vargas Llosa was not as successful in transforming these historical figures into fiction.

The works of Mario Vargas Llosa are viewed as both modernist and postmodernist novels.

Vargas Llosa sometimes used this technique as a means of shifting location by weaving together two concurrent conversations happening in different places.

Mario Vargas Llosa was looking for a style different from the traditional descriptions of land and rural life made famous by Peru's foremost novelist at the time, Jose Maria Arguedas.

Vargas Llosa wrote of Arguedas's work that it was "an example of old-fashioned regionalism that had already exhausted its imaginary possibilities".

Rather than restrict himself to Peruvian literature, Vargas Llosa looked abroad for literary inspiration.

Vargas Llosa considered Faulkner "the writer who perfected the methods of the modern novel".

Vargas Llosa continued to be criticized due to his association with far-right groups and politicians.

Vargas Llosa described himself as a supporter of liberalism and said that the individuals who have had most impact on his political thought have included Karl Popper, Friedrich Hayek, and Isaiah Berlin.

Vargas Llosa was one of the 25 leading figures on the Information and Democracy Commission launched in 2018 by Reporters Without Borders.

Mario Vargas Llosa supported right-wing libertarian candidate Javier Milei in the 2023 Argentine general election.

French intellectuals, who criticized his admission to the Academie francaise, said that Vargas Llosa contributed to the Peruvian political crisis during the 2021 general election.

Mario Vargas Llosa continued to write, both journalism and fiction, and to travel extensively.

Mario Vargas Llosa taught as a visiting professor at a number of prominent universities.

Vargas Llosa was an agnostic, "I was not a believer, nor was I an atheist either, but, rather, an agnostic".

Vargas Llosa declared himself a music lover and stated that he felt a special fondness for Gustav Mahler.

Mario Vargas Llosa was fond of association football and was a supporter of Universitario de Deportes.

In February 2011, Vargas Llosa was awarded an honorary life membership of this football club, in a ceremony that took place at Lima's Monumental Stadium.

In 2015, Vargas Llosa embarked on a relationship with Filipina Spanish socialite and TV personality Isabel Preysler and divorced his second wife Patricia Llosa.

Mario Vargas Llosa was infected with COVID-19 and was hospitalized in April 2022.

Vargas Llosa died on 13 April 2025 in Lima at the age of 89, surrounded by his family and "at peace", his son Alvaro Vargas Llosa said on his X account.

Vargas Llosa is considered a major Latin American writer, alongside other authors such as Octavio Paz, Julio Cortazar, Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Carlos Fuentes, and Isabel Allende.

Vargas Llosa is noted for his substantial contribution to journalism, an accomplishment shared by few other Latin American writers.

Vargas Llosa won numerous awards for his writing, from the 1962 to the 1993 and the Jerusalem Prize in 1995.

Vargas Llosa received the 2005 Irving Kristol Award from the American Enterprise Institute and was the 2008 recipient of the Harold and Ethel L Stellfox Visiting Scholar and Writers Award at Dickinson College.

On 18 November 2010, Vargas Llosa received an honorary Degree of Letters from the City College of New York of the City University of New York, where he delivered the President's Lecture.

On 25 November 2021, Vargas Llosa was elected to the Academie francaise.