MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Nobel Literature Prize for Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa

Vargas Llosa, “My goodness, what a storyteller!”

The 2010 Nobel literature prize winner Peruvian born author Mario Vargas Llosa said that he felt “a great joy'' when he was called with the news, but at first, he thought it might be a joke, ”I thought I had been completely forgotten by the Academy. I didn't even know the prize was being given this month.''

Asked about his political ideals, which are always present in his speeches and took him to run for president of Peru in 1990, the author said, “I defended the moral, democratic and civic ideals of liberalism, and stand against regimes like the Cuban one. I defend civilization,” thus making clear his stance on the civilization or barbarism cultural dichotomy.

The awarding committee said in a statement Vargas Llosa received the award “for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt and defeat.”

Vargas Llosa, who made his international breakthrough with the novel “The Time of the Hero” in 1966, is the first Latin American winner for literature since Octavio Paz won in 1990.

His works build on his experiences of life in Peru in the late 1940s and the 1950s. Vargas Llosa ran for president of Peru in 1990 but lost to Alberto Fujimori, who ultimately had to flee the country and was subsequently convicted of various crimes.

Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Nobel committee, said he had telephoned Vargas Llosa, who was in New York with the news.

“He's actually having a two-month stint there in Princeton teaching, so I was sort of embarrassed for phoning him so early. But he had been up since 5 o'clock preparing a lecture for Princeton. He was elated. He was very, very moved.”

“He has a number of masterpieces in narration because essentially he's a narrator, he's a storyteller. My goodness, what a storyteller!, said Englund.

The Nobel secretary characterised Vargas Llosa as one of the great authors in the Spanish-speaking world. ”He is one of the persons behind the Latin-American literary boom of the '60s and '70s, and he has continued to work and expand.“

Vargas Llosa's works are strewn with figures of power and authority. Facts about some of his books:

”La Ciudad y Los Perros,” (1962) published in English as “The Time of the Hero” -a coming-of-age novel about teenagers, loosely based on the author's life at a military school in Lima.

“The Green House” (1965) -a sensuous novel that follows what happens after a brothel is built in a small Peruvian town.

“Conversation in the Cathedral” (1969) -politics and power are discussed between characters in Peru, in the early 1950s. The bulk of the book is dialogue.

“Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter” (1977), is a comic novel loosely based on the author's first marriage. It tells the story of a young student's infatuation with an older divorcee.

“The War of the End of the World” (1981) -follows a fanatic preacher as he builds a town in Brazil and gathers an army, with disastrous consequences. It is based on the War of Canudos in Brazil in the 1890s.

“The Storyteller” (1987) is a semi-fictional study of an indigenous tribe in the Peruvian Amazon and its clash with modern culture. Its narrator resembles Vargas Llosa.

“A Fish in the Water” (1993) -a memoir recounting the author's run for the presidency in 1990.

“Death in the Andes” (1993) -follows an investigation of missing people like a detective novel. It is also a social criticism of the Shining Path insurgency that destabilized Peru for years.

“The Feast of the Goat” (2000) is located around the brutal regime of the Dominican Republic dictator, Rafael Trujillo.

“Travesuras de la Niña Mala,” (2006) -published in English as “The Bad Girl”- a love story between an earnest, devoted man and a woman, who wrecks havoc with him for decades.