Mario Vargas Llosa

Full Name: Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquis of Vargas Llosa
Profession: Author

Nationality:

Biography: Mario Vargas Llosa is one of the leading writers of the Latin American Boon generation. His considerable body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, non fiction works and literary criticism.

He published his first novel in 1963 "La ciudad y los perros (The City and the Dogs)” to large acclaim. Like much of his work it examines and criticises modern society, in this instance a military academy. Further successful novels such as "La casa verde (The Green House"), and "Conversación en la catedral (Conversation in the Cathedral)" followed. His literary criticism includes a work on his friend Gabriel García Márquez, whom he famously fell out with, resulting in a fist fight in 1976.

Vargas Llosa became more involved with politics in 1987 organising protests - the Movimiento Libertad, to oppose Peruvian president Alan García. He eventually formed the Frente Democrático political party and ran unsuccessfully in presidential elections in 1990.

In 2010 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature “for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat.” In later life he acquired Spanish citizenship, where he spent much of his time while also teaching around the world and even acting, from 2015 in one of his own plays.

Born: March 28, 1936
Birthplace: Arequipa, Peru
Age: 86 years old

Generation: Silent Generation
Chinese Zodiac: Rat
Star Sign: Aries