Mario Vargas Llosa, Peruvian author and Nobel literature laureate, dies at 89

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Mario Vargas Llosa, Peruvian author and Nobel literature laureate, dies at 89

By FRANKLIN BRICEÑO and CIARÁN GILES
Updated 9:31 PM EDT, April 14, 2025

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LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel literature laureate and a giant of Latin American letters, died Sunday. He was 89. ... He was a prolific author and essayist with such celebrated novels as “The Time of the Hero” (La Ciudad y los Perros) and “Feast of the Goat,” and won myriad prizes. The Nobel committee said it was awarding him in 2010 “for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat.”

“It is with deep sorrow that we announce that our father, Mario Vargas Llosa, passed away peacefully in Lima today, surrounded by his family,” read a letter signed by his children Álvaro, Gonzalo and Morgana, and posted by Álvaro on X.

{Snip AP pictures, which won't display properly at DU.}

“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,” they added.

The author’s lawyer and close friend, Enrique Ghersi, confirmed the death to The Associated Press and recalled the writer’s last birthday on March 28 at the home of his daughter, Morgana. “He spent it happy; his close friends surrounded him, he ate his cake, we joked that day that there were still 89 more years to go, he had a long, fruitful, and free life,” Ghersi said.

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[Mike 03]

1. Damn. At one point (in the late 80s/early 90s he was my favorite

novelist. "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter," "Who Killed Palomino Molero?", "Death in the Andes,"
"Feast of the Goat," "The Storyteller," "War of the End of the World," "The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta" and so many others. Not to mention his non-fiction, piercing interviews, and his run for the presidency of Peru.

I still don't understand his shift to the right. When I saw him begin to endorse autocrats something inside me died a little bit.

RIP you strange but obscenely talented contrarian.