Mario Vargas Llosa, writer and Nobel Prize for literature, dies at the age of 89

Mario Vargas LlosaThe writer and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010, died on Sunday 13, at the age of 89. The information was released by his son, Álvaro, on the social network X.

According to a statement issued by the family, there will be no public funeral ceremony and the body will be cremated.

Life and work by Mario Vargas Llosa

Mario Vargas Llosa was born in Arequipa, Peru on March 28, 1936 Over the years, important works have arrived Conversation to the cathedral, at the end of the world, to the city and dogs AND Bode’s party (Take a look at a wider list at the end of the article).

He was considered one of the main names of the “boom” of Latin American literature in the 60s and 70s, together with figures such as Gabriel García Márquez, Julio Cortázar and Carlos Fuentes.

One of its best known productions, Conversation of the cathedral (1969) He brings a conversation between a journalist and an old friend of his father, so the memories help to tell the story of Peru’s political and social issues in the 1950s.

Already The war of the end of the world (1981) He was closely linked to the history of Brazil, showing the cutout of Vargas Llosa on the Canudos war, which took place in Bahia at the end of the nineteenth century.

The city and dogs (1963) takes place in a Peruvian military college and debate on the perspective of authority and oppression. The theme is also repeated in The Bode Feast (2000), which is based on the trajectory of Rafael Trujillo, a dictator who ruled the Dominican Republic between 1930 and 1961.

In October 2023, he launched his latest novel, I dedicate them to me silence. “I will never stop working and I hope to have the strength to do it until the end,” he said, but announcing that it was his latest complete book made from scratch. “Now I would like to write a test on Sartre, who was my teacher as a young man. It will be the last thing I will write,” he explained.

Mario Vargas Llosa in Estadão

Vargas Llosa was editorialist for Estadão Between 1996 and 2024. The last was published by the newspaper on February 21, 2024, entitled “Why is the Truth Stone of Journalism?” Rereading.

The Nobel Prize for the literature of Vargas Llosa

One of the salient moments of his trajectory occurred on October 7, 2010, when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. According to the Swedish academy, which organizes the event, he received the decoration “for his cartography of power structures and his vigorous images on the resistance, the revolt and defeat of the individual” (read more here).

Vargas llosa and politics

Vargas Llosa was also known for its political positions. Among the most recent, the Critic of Tree Fujimori (1938-2024), authoritarian president of Peru between 1990 and 2000, attracted attention by supporting the candidacy of his daughter, Keiko Fujimori, in the dispute against Pedro Castillo to the presidency in 2021, although he had had criticism of her.

At the beginning of 2023 he compared the attempt at the coup d’état of Castillo, who had taken the best in the elections, to the practices of Alberto Fujimori (to reread).

The main moment of his political life took place in 1990, when he played in the presidential elections of Peru with the democratic front, leading the first round. In the 2nd round, however, an advantage was reversed which was 32% to 29% compared to Fujimori and the opponent was elected president with 63% to 37% of the votes.

In an interview with EstadãoIn 2021, he was questioned: “What is the ideal political regime for the Lord?” The answer: “Well, I’m a liberal, a democrat, I believe in freedom”.

“And nothing has increased both democracy and liberalism, the source of great democratic reforms and, for example, the creation of unions, the idea of ​​equal opportunities. It is important that each generation moves away from the same starting point so that society has a dynamism.”

“At the same time, I believe that the great liberal thinkers are practical, they do not trigger the great reforms, they ask that changes are made on the basis of the will of the societies themselves, and this is what prevents or limits the violence that is so great today in the societies that are brought to a certain ideology”, continued Vargas Llosa.

The family communicates on the death of Vargas Llosa

“With deep pain, we inform the audience that our father, Mario Vargas Llosa, died today in Lima, surrounded by his family and in peace.

Your departure saddens that your relatives, friends and readers from all over the world, but we hope that they find comfort, like us, in the fact that he has enjoyed a long, multiple and fruitful life and leaves a job that will survive him.

We will proceed in the next few hours and days according to your instructions. There will be no public ceremony. Our mother, our children and we trust ourselves to have space and privacy for the farewell of the family and the company of intimate friends.

Your remains, as your will was, will be incinerated. “

With Deep Dolor, we audiences of Haceos who naked priest, Mario Vargas Llosa, there is a Hoy En Lima patient, surrounded by super family in peace. @Morganavll pic.twitter.com/mkfeanxeja

– Álvaro Vargas Llosa (@alvarovagasll) April 14, 2025

The main works of Mario Vargas Llosa

Mario Vargas Llosa Fiction Books

• The Bosses (1959)
• The City and the Dogs (1963)
• The Green House (1966)
• Cathedral Conversation (1969)
• Pantaleão and visitors (1973)
• Aunt Julia and The Writing (1977)
• The War of the End of the World (1981)
• History of Mayta (1984)
• Who killed Palomino Molero? (1986)
• The Speaker (1987)
• Praise of the stepmother (1988)
• Lituma in the Andes (1993)
• Sun Rigoberto’s Notebooks (1997)
• The Bode Party (2000)
• Paradise at the other corner (2003)
• Panni of The Bad Girl (2006)

Theater pieces written by Mario Vargas Llosa

• Work granted (2005)
• The Girl from Tacna (1981)
• Katie and the Hippo (1983)
• La Chunga (1986)
• El Loco de Los Balcones (1993)
• Beautiful Eyes, Ugly Painings (1996)
• Odiiseo y peelope
• To the pious of the Tamesis

Essays Mario Vargas Llosa

• García Márquez: History of a deicide (1971)
• Secret History of a novel (1971)
• The Perpetual Orgía: Flaubert y Madame Bovary (1975)
• Against wind y tide. Volumen I (1962-1982) (1983)
• Against wind y tide. Volumen II (1972-1983) (1986)
• Against wind y tide. Volumen III (1964-1988) (1990)
• The Truth of Lies: Essays on Modern Romance (1990)
• Batalla of Tirant Lo Blanc (1991)
• Challenges to La Libertad (1994)
• Utopía Archaic. José María supported the Las Ficciones of Indigenism (1996)
• Letters to a young writer (1997)
• El Lenguje de la Pasión (2001)
• La Tempión de Lo impable (2004)
• Israel/Palestine. Peace the Santa War (2006)

Source: Terra