Which Peruvian-Spanish novelist won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature?

Mario Vargas Llosa won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature. The Swedish Academy honored him for his “cartography of structures of power” and his penetrating images of individual resistance, revolt and defeat.

Born in Arequipa, Peru, in 1936, Vargas Llosa became one of the leading figures of the Latin American Boom, the international surge of innovative Spanish-language fiction in the 1960s and 1970s. His major novels include The Time of the Hero, Conversation in the Cathedral, The War of the End of the World and The Feast of the Goat. He was also a journalist, essayist and political candidate.

The wording “Peruvian-Spanish” reflects his dual national identity: he acquired Spanish citizenship in 1993 while retaining his Peruvian identity and literary reputation. He wrote primarily in Spanish, not English. He was the first Peruvian-born Nobel laureate in Literature, and his award was the first in that category since the 2009 prize to Herta Müller.