Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, whose work ignited a global boom in Latin American literature, has died “peacefully”.
Mr Llosa passed away on Sunday, and his death was announced in a social media statement from his children, Álvaro, Gonzalo and Morgana Vargas Llosa.
He was 89.
“It is with deep sorrow that we announce that our father, Mario Vargas Llosa, passed away peacefully in Lima today, surrounded by his family,” the children said in the statement posted on X.
The statement added, “His departure will sadden his relatives, his friends and his readers around the world, but we hope that they will find comfort, as we do, in the fact that he enjoyed a long, adventurous and fruitful life, and leaves behind him a body of work that will outlive him.”
“We will proceed in the coming hours and days in accordance with his instructions. No public ceremony will take place. Our mother, our children and ourselves trust that we will have the space and privacy to bid him farewell in the company of family members and close friends. As was his will, his remains will be cremated,”
Mr Llosa’s writing career spanned more than 50 years, with many of his books, including ‘The Time of the Hero’, ‘Conversation in the Cathedral’ and ‘The Feast of the Goat’, telling the stories of the struggles for freedom in his native country of Peru.
Several of his works, which included plays, short stories and novels, also depict political corruption and moral compromises in Peru, which earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010 and solidified his reputation as one of the greatest writers in Latin America.
He joined a cohort of writers like Gabriel García Márquez of Colombia and Julio Cortázar of Argentina, who became famous in the 1960s as members of Latin America’s literary “boom generation.”
Mr Llosa turned down an offer from the conservative president Fernando Belaúnde Terry to become his prime minister in 1984 before jumping into politics fully. He launched a presidential bid in 1990 but was defeated in the second round of polls and left Peru shortly.
