The world of literature is mourning, Mario Vargas Llosa has died

The world of literature is mourning after the death of the outstanding Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, who died at age 89 at his home in Lima, where he resided since 2022. The news was confirmed by his family through a statement shared by his son Álvaro Vargas Llosa in social networks:

«With deep pain, we make public that our father, Mario Vargas Llosa, has died today in Lima, surrounded by his family and peace.»

The family also reported that their remains will be cremated, such as their desire, and that a public ceremony will not be held, but an intimate farewell in the family environment.

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010, Vargas Llosa was a central figure of Latin American letters for more than half a century. He received other important recognitions, such as the Cervantes Award (1994), known as the “Nobel Prize for Hispanic Letters, and the Prince of Asturias de las Letras (1986). In 2023, he became the first member of the French Academy who did not write in French, highlighting the global influence of his literary work.

Born on March 28, 1936 in Arequipa, Peru, Vargas Llosa spent his childhood in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and in Piura, Peru. At age 14, he moved to Lima with his mother and father, facing a new family reality that marked his youth. In his last years, he lived most of the time in Europe. He returned to Lima in 2022, where he continued writing and participating in literary and political debates.

Vargas Llosa was a central figure of the Latin American boom, along with Gabriel García Márquez, Julio Cortázar and Carlos Fuentes. His work covered various genres, including novel, essay, and theater, and journalism. Among his most emblematic novels are «The city and the dogs (1963)», «La Casa Verde (1966),» Conversation in the Cathedral (1969), «The Chivo Festival (2000)», and the novel biography of the Irishman Roger Casement «The Dream of Celta (2010).

From early on, he abandoned socialist, popular ideas among his contemporaries, venturing into policy with conservative opinions that irritated a large part of the leftist intellectual class in Latin America, recalls the Reuters news agency in an obituary.

In 1990, he ran to the presidency of Peru, saying that he wanted to save his country from economic chaos and a Marxist insurgency, but lost in the second round in front of Alberto Fujimori, who was subsequently imprisoned for human rights and corruption crimes.

After the political defeat, Vargas Llosa moved to Spain, but remained an influential figure in Latin America, where he harshly criticized a new wave of leftist leaders, including the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, friend and disciple of the Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

Vargas Llosa considered that the political systems of countries such as Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua They are examples of the failure of radical socialism and communism. The writer, missed by the Cuban regime for his critical position towards the Latin American left, anticipated the social outbreak occurred on the island in July 2021, in an interview with Radio Televisión Martí.

«The Cuban people unfortunately suffer 60 years ago a terrible dictatorship that seems to have destroyed the roots (in favor of freedom, in favor of democracy); I believe not, I believe that those roots are there, and that at any time the Cuban people will give us a surprise,» said Vargas Llosa.

After the 11J protests, the writer supported a Open letter to Miguel Díaz-Canelwhere hundreds of signatories demanded from the ruler the liberation of political prisoners in Cuba.

Months later, he voted on a visit to Miami so that the «inevitable» change process in Cuba It happened peacefully and asked the island authorities to allow it, because «Cubans have already had enough drama,» he said in statements to the press.

In his dozens of novels, plays and essays, Vargas Llosa narrated stories from various points of view and experienced the form, alternating between different eras and changing narrator. It was a fundamental figure in a generation of writers that led the resurgence of Latin American literature in the 1960s.

The death of Vargas Llosa marks the end of an era in Latin American literature, but his work will last and continue to be studied and admired by future generations of readers.