April 14 (UPI) -- Mario Vargas Llosa, a prolific Peruvian novelist and essayist who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2010, died Sunday in Lima, his family said. He was 89.
Varga Llosa "passed away peacefully, surrounded by his family," according to a letter signed by his children Álvaro, Gonzalo and Morgana, and poste on X.
"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."
No public ceremony is planned and his remains will be cremated, the family said.
Related
Vargas Llosa, one of the most renowned authors in Spanish, wrote about male violence, societal disruption and authoritarian politics, including long periods of political repression or unrest in Peru, NPR said.
The Nobel Swedish academy in 2010 noted "his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat."
Vargas Llosa, who unsuccessfully ran for president in Peru, said during his visit to the Noel Museum in Stockholm on May 23, 2014: "I am convinced that, for example, democratic culture, culture based on freedom, on respect of human rights, was something that was possible because we had people that were sensibilized by art, by literature, by culture in general, about the sufferance, the injustices, the inequalities, the abuses who were so extended in real life."
"So, I think literature is pleasure but it's also a very important instrument to move forward in life."
His books included Conversation in the Cathedral in 1969, The War of the End of the World in 1981 and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter in 1977, which was adapted for the 1990 feature film Tune in Tomorrow.
He was born in Arequipa, southern Peru, and spent his young years in Cochabamba, Bolivia, where his grandfather was the Peruvian consul. He attended a military school and the National University of San Marcos in Lima.
He was a student at the University of Madrid before moving to Paris.
In 1952 he published his first work, a play called La guide del Inca.
He published his first novel in 1963, La ciudad y los perros, which in English is The Time of the Hero. Other novels were The Green House in 1966 and Captain Pantoja and the Special Service in 1973.
Later novels were The Feast of the Goat in 2000 and The Bad Girl in 2006.
Vargas Llosa worked as a journalist and broadcaster.
In 1990, Vargas Llosa ran for president of Peru as a classical liberal. He lost to Alberto Fujimori in a second-round landslide
He moved to Spain in 1993, becoming a Spanish citizen
Peru's President Dina Ercilia Boluarte Zegarra wrote on X: "His intellectual genius and vast body of work will remain an everlasting legacy for future generations. We express our deepest condolences to his family, friends, and the world of literature.
"Rest in peace, illustrious Peruvian of all time."
