The Guardian: I Give You My Silence by Mario Vargas Llosa review – Nobel laureate’s final novel is a love letter to Peru
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Mario Vargas Llosa
Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquess of Vargas Llosa was a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist, and politician. Vargas Llosa was one of the most significant Latin American novelists and essayists and one of the leading writers of his generation. Some critics consider him to have had a more substantial international impact and worldwide audience than any other writer of the Latin Americ…
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entertainment · Peruvian novelist and writer (1936–2025) · novelist · dramaturge · politician · journalist · essayist · literary critic · screenwriter · university teacher · prose writer · playwright · also Mario Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquess of Vargas Llosa, Llosa
Born 28 March 1936 · Died 13 April 2025 · Q39803
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2026· 3 entries
Financial Times: Mario Vargas Llosa: the legacy of a literary superstar
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The Guardian: Mario Vargas Llosa by Gerald Martin review – the Peruvian leftist who fell in love with Margaret Thatcher
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2025· 8 entries
The Guardian: ‘We waited greedily for his novels’: Mario Vargas Llosa, a revolutionary of Spanish-language fiction
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The Guardian: Mario Vargas Llosa obituary
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The Guardian: Mario Vargas Llosa, giant of Latin American literature, dies aged 89
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Yahoo: Mario Vargas Llosa dies at 89: Nobel laureate from Peru was the last of 'El Boom' novelists
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Yahoo: Mario Vargas Llosa, Peruvian author and Nobel literature laureate, dies at 89
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Chicago Tribune: Muere Mario Vargas Llosa, premio Nobel de Literatura y gigante de las letras latinoamericanas
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Died 2025-04-13.
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“Political correctness is the enemy of freedom because it rejects honesty and authenticity. We have to tackle it as the distortion of the truth.”
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2023· 2 entries
The Guardian: Mario Vargas Llosa says latest novel will be his last
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Vargas Llosa announced that he would publish his final novel, Le dedico mi silencio (I Give You My Silence), and retire
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2022· 1 entry
The Guardian: Author Mario Vargas Llosa backs Bolsonaro over Lula in Brazil election
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2021· 6 entries
The Guardian: Harsh Times by Mario Vargas Llosa review – CIA secrets and breathtaking lies
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Publishers Weekly: Books by Mario Vargas Llosa and Complete Book Reviews
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Career landmark: Pandora Papers.
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Career landmark: member of the Académie française (2021–2025).
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Attended a rally against the pardon of the Catalan independence leaders in Madrid
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Was elected to the Académie Française
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2019· 3 entries
The Guardian: Mario Vargas Llosa: Peru's suspended congress are 'semi-illiterate swindlers'
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The Guardian: Mario Vargas Llosa quits writers' body over Catalan remarks
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Published the novel Harsh Times (Tiempos recios), about the 1954 coup in Guatemala
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2018· 3 entries
The Guardian: The Neighborhood by Mario Vargas Llosa – digested read
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The Guardian: The Neighbourhood by Mario Vargas Llosa review – a steamy page-turner
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The Guardian: Mario Vargas Llosa: murder of Mexican journalists is due to press freedom
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2016· 3 entries
Awarded Library of Congress Living Legend (2016).
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Carmen Balcells said on behalf of Vargas Llosa that investments were made "without the consent of Messrs
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Career landmark: Panama Papers.
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2015· 2 entries
Won gold Medal of the Community of Madrid (2015).
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Vargas Llosa embarked on a relationship with Filipina Spanish socialite and TV personality Isabel Preysler and separated from his second wife Patricia Llosa
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2014· 1 entry
"Keiko is the daughter of a murderer and a thief who is imprisoned, tried by civil courts with international observers, sentenced to 25 years in prison for murder and theft
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2012· 2 entries
Awarded Carlos Fuentes International Prize for Literary Creation in the Spanish Language (2012).
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Awarded honorary doctorate of the University of Las Palmas, Gran Canaria (2012).
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2011· 3 entries
Awarded Commander of the Order of the Aztec Eagle (2011).
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“the worst option is that of Keiko Fujimori because it means the legitimation of one of the worst dictatorships that Peru has had in its history”
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Vargas Llosa was made Marquess of Vargas Llosa by the Spanish king Juan Carlos I
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2010· 4 entries
Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature — for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat.
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Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature (2010).
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Awarded Viareggio-Versilia International Prize (2010).
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Won the Nobel Prize in Literature for "his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat"
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2009· 2 entries
Awarded honorary doctorate of the Bordeaux Montaigne University (2009).
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Awarded honorary doctorate of the University of Granada (2009).
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2008· 3 entries
Awarded honorary doctor of the University of Alicante (2008).
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Awarded Prix mondial Cino Del Duca (2008).
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Awarded Freedom Prize presented by Friedrich Naumann Foundation (2008).
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2007· 1 entry
Vargas Llosa agreed to allow part of his book to be used as the introduction to a 40th-anniversary edition of García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, which was re-released in Spain and throughout Latin America th
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2006· 3 entries
Awarded Maria Moors Cabot Prizes (2006).
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Awarded Orden de la Independencia Cultural Rubén Darío (2006).
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Vargas Llosa wrote The Bad Girl (Travesuras de la niña mala), which journalist Kathryn Harrison argues is a rewrite (rather than simply a recycling) of Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary (1856)
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2005· 2 entries
Awarded Irving Kristol Award (2005).
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Awarded Honorary doctor of the Humboldt University of Berlin (2005).
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2003· 1 entry
Wrote The Way to Paradise in which he studies Flora Tristan and Paul Gauguin
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2002· 2 entries
Awarded Caonabo de Oro Award (2002).
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Vargas was the recipient of the PEN/Nabokov Award
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2001· 2 entries
Awarded Grand Cross, Special Class of the Order of the Sun of Peru (2001).
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Awarded honorary doctorate of the National University of San Marcos (2001).
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1999· 3 entries
Awarded Ortega y Gasset Awards (1999).
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Awarded Menéndez Pelayo International Prize (1999).
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Vargas Llosa wrote an op-ed in The New York Times asking why left-wing dictators were not also being arrested
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1997· 1 entry
Awarded Mariano de Cavia' Price (1997).
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1996· 2 entries
Awarded Peace Prize of the German Publishers' and Booksellers' Association (1996).
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Career landmark: Member of the Royal Spanish Academy (1996–2025).
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1995· 3 entries
Awarded Jerusalem Prize (1995).
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Awarded honorary doctorate of the University of Murcia (1995).
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Awarded honorary doctorate of the University of Valladolid (1995).
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1994· 3 entries
Awarded honorary doctor of the University of Rennes 2 (1994).
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Awarded Miguel de Cervantes Prize (1994).
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Was elected a member of the Real Academia Española (Royal Spanish Academy) and took up its L seat on 15 January 1996
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1993· 3 entries
Awarded Premio Planeta de Novela for Death in the Andes (1993).
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Awarded Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres (1993).
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Though he still held Peruvian nationality
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1990· 2 entries
Into a Hollywood feature film, Tune in Tomorrow
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As the candidate of the FREDEMO coalition with the support of the United States
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1989· 1 entry
The Washington Post wrote that though Vargas Llosa's party appeared centre-right, "he has ties with far-right politicians in other countries"
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1987· 2 entries
Helped form and soon became a leader of the centre-right party Movimiento Libertad
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Vargas Llosa was "perhaps the most successful
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1986· 3 entries
Awarded Princess of Asturias Literary Prize (1986).
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Awarded Grinzane Cavour Prize for The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta (1986).
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Completed his next novel, Who Killed Palomino Molero
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1985· 2 entries
Awarded Knight of the Legion of Honour (1985).
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And released a film version of Captain Pantoja and the Special Services in 1999, and Vargas Llosa's cousin Luis Llosa adapted The Feast of the Goat in 2005
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1983· 2 entries
Experienced what literary critic Jean Franco calls "the most uncomfortable event in [his] political career"
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Finished The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta (Historia de Mayta, 1984)
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1981· 1 entry
And was his first attempt at a historical novel
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1977· 2 entries
Vargas Llosa was elected as a member of the Peruvian Academy of Language
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Career landmark: chairman of PEN International (1977–1979).
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1976· 2 entries
Vargas Llosa punched García Márquez in the face at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, ending the friendship
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Was elected President of PEN International, the worldwide association of writers and oldest human rights organization, a position he held until 1979
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1975· 1 entry
Co-directed an unsuccessful motion-picture adaptation of his novel, Captain Pantoja and the Secret Service
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1971· 3 entries
Vargas Llosa published García Márquez: Story of a Deicide (García Márquez: historia de un deicidio), which was his doctoral thesis for the Complutense University of Madrid
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And later identified as a classical liberal and held anti–left-wing ideas
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Studied at Complutense University of Madrid, doctorate (1958–1971).
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1967· 5 entries
Awarded Castilian Narrative Critic Award for The Green House (1967).
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Awarded Rómulo Gallegos Prize for The Green House (1967).
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Awarded Prix Formentor (1967).
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Contending with works by veteran Uruguayan writer Juan Carlos Onetti and by Gabriel García Márquez
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Vargas Llosa published Los cachorros, a short novel centered on Cuéllar, a boy marked by a brutal school accident
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1965· 1 entry
Vargas Llosa published his second novel, The Green House (La casa verde), about a brothel called "The Green House" and how its quasi-mythical presence affects the lives of the characters
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1964· 1 entry
Awarded Castilian Narrative Critic Award for The Time of the Hero (1964).
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1963· 1 entry
– La ciudad y los perros (The Time of the Hero, 1966, ISBN 9780374520212)
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1962· 1 entry
Awarded Premio Biblioteca Breve for The Time of the Hero (1962).
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1961· 1 entry
The novel has three main strands: one concerns Urania Cabral, the daughter of a former politician and Trujillo loyalist, who returns for the first time since leaving the Dominican Republic after Trujillo's assassination
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1960· 1 entry
After his scholarship in Madrid had expired, Vargas Llosa moved to France, under the impression that he would receive a scholarship to study there
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1958· 3 entries
– Bases para una interpretación de Rubén Darío (Foundations for an Interpretation of Rubén Darío, OCLC 48811330)
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Received a scholarship to study at the Complutense University of Madrid in Spain
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Studied at National University of San Marcos (1953–1958).
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1957· 1 entry
With the publication of his first short stories, "The Leaders" ("Los jefes") and "The Grandfather" ("El abuelo"), while working for two Peruvian newspapers
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1955· 1 entry
At the age of 19; she was 10 years older
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1952· 1 entry
Studied at Colegio San Miguel de Piura (1952–1952).
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1951· 1 entry
Studied at Leoncio Prado Military Academy (1950–1951).
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1949· 1 entry
Studied at Colegio La Salle (1947–1949).
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1946· 1 entry
At the age of ten, he moved to Lima and met his father for the first time
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1936· 1 entry
Born 1936-03-28.
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