Vargas Llosa, Mario

Vargas Llosa, Mario (mär`yō vär`gäs yō`sä), 1936–, Peruvian novelist and politician. Although his works contain much external realism emphasizing the ugly and grotesque, he also often explores the minds of his characters, overcoming barriers of time and space. In his fiction, Vargas Llosa paints a portrait of Peruvian society that is both severe and tender. His novels include The Time of the Hero (1962; tr. 1966), The Green House (1966; tr. 1968), Conversation in the Cathedral (1969; tr. 1975), Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977; tr. 1982), The War of the End of the World (1981; tr. 1982), Death in the Andes (1993; tr. 1996), The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto (1997, tr. 1998), and The Feast of the Goat (2000, tr. 2001). He is also the author of criticism, including The Perpetual Orgy: Flaubert and Madame Bovary (1975; tr. 1986) and Writer's Reality (1991), and essays, such as those in Making Waves (1996). Vargas Llosa was an unsuccessful candidate for Peruvian president in 1990; he described the vagaries of his campaign in A Fish in the Water: A Memoir (1993, tr. 1994).

Bibliography

See studies by S. Castro-Klaren and R. A. Kerr (both: 1990); collection of critical essays ed. by C. Rossman and A. Friedman (1978).

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Vargas Llosa, (Jorge) Mario (Pedro)

Mario Vargas Llosa, c. 1990.

(credit: Rue des Archives/The Granger Collection, New York)

(born March 28, 1936, Arequipa, Peru) Peruvian writer. Vargas Llosa worked as a journalist and broadcaster before publishing The Time of the Hero (1963), his widely acclaimed first novel. It describes adolescents striving for survival in the hostile environment of a military school, the corruption of which reflects the larger malaise afflicting Peru. His commitment to social change is evident in his early novels, essays, and plays. He turned increasingly conservative, especially in the face of the Maoist Shining Path insurgency, and in 1990 he ran for president of Peru. His best-known works include The Green House (1965), Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977), and The War of the End of the World (1981), an account of a 19th-century Brazilian religious movement. In 1994 he won the Cervantes Prize (a prestigious literary award given for Spanish-language literature).

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Vargas Llosa, Mario 

Born in 1936 in Lima. Peruvian writer. His first book was a collection of stories, Leaders (1959). His novel The City and the Dogs (1963; Russian translation, 1965) dealing with life in a military college, is based on autobiographic material. In this novel, and also in the novel The Green House (1966) and the story “Puppies” (1967), Vargas Llosa’s interest in social and psychological problems is evident. His artistic mastery places him among the writers who are rejuvenating contemporary Latin American prose.

WORKS

In Russian translation:
“Buntar’, b’iushchii v nabat.” Za rubezhom, 1967, no. 51.

REFERENCES

Harss, L. Los nuestros. Buenos Aires [1967].
Pacheco, J. E. “Lectura de Vargas Llosa.” Revista de la Universidad de Mexico, 1968, vol. 22, no. 8.

V. N. KUTEISHCHIKOVA