Mario Vargas Llosa

At 19, he married Julia Urquidi, the sister-in-law of his maternal uncle, who was ten years his senior.

In 1964, Mario and Julia separated and, in 1965, he remarried, this time to his first cousin, Patricia Llosa, with whom he had three children.

His influence as a novelist and writer is largely seen in later generations of Spanish-language authors as well as international writers.

Mario Vargas Llosa was born on March 28, 1936, in Arequipa, Peru, to a middle-class family.

His parents, Ernesto Vargas Maldonado and Dora Llosa Ureta, separated shortly before Vargas Llosa’s birth and, as a result, he lived primarily with his mother’s family.

During his early childhood, he moved from Arequipa to the Bolivian town of Cochabamba and back to Plura, Peru, a result of various diplomatic posts that his maternal grandfather held.

At the age of ten, he moved to Lima, where he lived for the first time with both his parents, who had reconciled.

During his teenage years, he began working as an amateur journalist for various Lima newspapers.

At the age of 17, he enrolled in the National University of San Marcos, Lima, to study law and literature.

After graduating from the National University of San Marcos, he received a scholarship to study at the Complutense University in Madrid, Spain, where he completed a doctoral thesis.

In 1960, he moved to Paris, hoping to receive a scholarship to continue his studies. Although his application was rejected, he continued to reside in Paris and devoted his energies to writing, full-time.

In the early 1960s, his novels received critical attention for the first time.

In 1963, his first novel, based on his experiences at a Lima military school, received widespread acclaim including a Spanish literary prize.

In 1966, he published his first novel, ‘The Green House’, which received critical appreciation, including the description by Gerald Martin as “one of the greatest novels to have emerged from Latin America.”

In 1969, he wrote ‘Conversation in the Cathedral’, which catapulted his name into worldwide literary circles.

In 1981, Vargas Llosa’s first historical novel ‘The War of the End of the World’ was acclaimed as one of his most ambitious and most successful works.

In 2000, his political thriller ‘The Feast of the Goat’ received widespread acclaim as one of his most important works.