Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
A NOBEL FOR PERU
In 2010, Mario Vargas Llosa (b 1936), Peru's most famous living writer, was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature
for work that explored the vagaries of love, power and corruption. The honorific caps an extraordinary life: as a
young man, Vargas Llosa had an affair with an uncle's sister-in-law, whom he later married (an incident he fic-
tionalized in
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
). In the '70s, he came to blows with Colombian Nobel Laureate
Gabriel García Márquez for reasons that have never been revealed. The following decade he ran for the presiden-
cy - and lost. Over his life he has produced novels, short stories, plays and political essays. Upon winning the No-
bel, he told a reporter: 'Death will find me with my pen in hand.'
