Mario Vargas Llosa wins 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature

The author of  The Time of the Hero (1962), The Green House (1965), Pantaleón and the Visitors (1973) and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977) will receive 10 million Swedish kronor (1 million euro) in prize money. His next novel, El sueño del celta ("The Celt's Dream") will be published by Alfaguara in November.

The last time a Spanish-language author received the Nobel Prize in Literature was in 1990, when the Mexican writer Octavio Paz won the award. This year, there were a number of other Spanish-language authors tipped for the prize, including the Argentinean writer Juan Gelman, the Mexican Carlos Fuentes, the Spaniards Javier Marias and Juan Marse and the Paraguayan Nestor Amarilla.

Peruvian-born and a Spanish national since 1993, Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa is one of the great innovators of the realist novel. He is also a widely regarded academic, journalist, art and film critic and has won some of Spain's most prestigious prizes: the Prince of Asturias Literature Prize (1986, shared with Rafael Lapesa), the Planeta Prize (1993 for his book Death in the Andes) and the Cervantes Prize (1994). In 2009 he won the International Don Quijote de la Mancha Award. Vargas Llosa was born on March 28, 1936, in Arequipa, Peru.

Further information:

Mario Vargas Llosa bibliography