New York:
Great literature needs tumult. For the body of a great tale. Mario Vargas Llosa has used the tumult of his times and of his region to tell story after gripping story.
The 74-year-old is indubitably one of the most important Latin American authors. Standing right there with his one-time friend and for many years now not-a-friend Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who won the1982 Nobel.
But Vargas Llosa, unlike Marquez, is not a magical realist. He is more a socio-political commentator who has dealt with subjects around extreme power and dictatorships, deep corruption and political turmoil in Latin America.
After Vargas Llosa's name was announced as this year's Nobel laureate today, Marquez reportedly tweeted in Spanish: "We are equals."
Legend has it that the two literary giants and friends fell out one day in 1976, when Vargas Llosa punched Marquez in the face. There is a whole lot of conjecture still on what had provoked the Peruvian author to do that.
Yes, Vargas Llosa has lived as vividly interesting a life as the pictures his stories paint. He was born in Arequipa, Peru, on March 28, 1936. His parents separated before his birth and Vargas Llosa grew up with his maternal grandparents in Bolivia after his parents divorced. The family moved back to Peru in 1946. His parents were re-united and he later attended military school and then studied literature and law.
Vargas Llosa began working as a journalist before he finished his graduation.
At the age of 19, he wed a woman 13 years older than him. He became a published writer even as he worked as a newspaper journalist.
He moved to Paris after graduation and began to write. His first marriage ended after nine years and he then wed Patricia Llosa, a cousin. They have three children.
Vargas Llosa has written more than 30 novels, plays and essays, including all-time greats like Conversation in the Cathedral, The Green House, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter and The Feast of the Goat. In 2006-07 he wrote The Bad Girl, the story of a woman who turns up in the protaganist's life at various crucial points only to leave him time and again. As in his other novels, the Peruvian capital of Lima is central to his plot. As in his other novels there is vitality, a sweeping canvas and a twist in the tale. His next novel is expected to be released later this year.
The author's stories are set in the political context of a period and he digs into his own life to tell the tale of an individual in that context. The novel The Time of The Hero, a controversial commentary based on his military school experiences, is considered his breakthrough work. It was published in 1963, the version in English in 1966.
In the late 1980s, the fragile political situation in Peru drew Vargas Llosa to politics and he ran for President in 1990. He was defeated by Alberto Fujimori.
The Swedish Academy has said it has honored the 74-year-old author "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt and defeat."