Oct. 7: Peruvian-born writer and one-time presidential candidate Mario Vargas Llosa, a chronicler of the struggle against authority in Latin America, won the 2010 Nobel prize for literature on Thursday. The awarding committee said in a statement Mr Vargas Llosa received the award “for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt and defeat”.
Mr Llosa, who has both Spanish and Peruvian citizenship, made his international breakthrough with the novel The Time of the Hero in 1966. He is the first Latin American winner for literature since Mexico’s Octavio Paz won in 1990.
His works build on his experiences of life in Peru in the late 1940s and the 1950s. Mr 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.
Mr Llosa was quoted on the website of Peruvian newspaper El Comercio as being taken aback by the news. “It was a big surprise. At first I thought it was a joke,” the site quoted him as saying. Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Nobel committee, said he had telephoned Mr Llosa, who was in the United States. “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.”
Mr Englund bubbled over in his praise of the writer, who will receive 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.50 million). “He has a number of masterpieces in narration because essentially he’s a narrator, he’s a storyteller. My goodness, what a storyteller!” Mr Englund characterised Mr 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.”
Mr Llosa is also at the centre of one of the literary world’s most famous feuds. In 1976, Mr Llosa punched his friend and fellow writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez in public. The two ceased speaking to each other and for decades the reason behind the fight has been a mystery. A photographer who captured Garcia Marquez — and his black eye — wrote about the incident in 2007 and suggested it concerned Mr Llosa’s wife.
Mr Llosa has been tipped for years to win the prize. This year he was a 25-1 outsider, behind American novelist and favourite Cormac McCarthy and Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o, according to British betting firm Ladbrokes.
“We’re breathing an enormous sigh of relief. Yet again, the judges have confounded the punters and plucked a relative unknown contender out of the mix,” Ladbrokes spokesman said David Williams said. “We saw more money bet on the contest this year than in its entire history. We’ll send a crate of champagne to the winner because he’s helped us dodge a massive payout.”
The author’s works are strewn with figures of authority. In The Feast of the Goat, a 49-year-old woman returns to the Dominican Republic, haunted by memories of her childhood when the nation was led by brutal dictator Rafael Trujillo.