TEXT

The Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, whose deeply political work vividly examines the perils of power and corruption in Latin America, won the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday.

Mr. Vargas Llosa, 74, is one of the most celebrated writers of the Spanish-speaking world, an anti-totalitarian intellectual whose work covers the range of human experience, whether it is ideology or eros. He is frequently mentioned with his contemporary Gabriel García Márquez, who won the literature Nobel in 1982, the last South American to do so. Mr. Vargas Llosa has written more than 30 works of nonfiction, plays and novels, including "The Feast of the Goat" and "The War of the End of the World."

The prize is the first for a writer in the Spanish language in two decades, after Octavio Paz of Mexico won in 1990. It renews attention on the Latin American writers who gained renown in the 1960s, like Julio Cortázar of Argentina and Carlos Fuentes of Mexico, who formed the region’s "boom generation."

During a news conference at the Instituto Cervantes in Manhattan on Thursday, Mr. Vargas Llosa, an elegant, dashing figure with silvery hair, appeared in front of a crowd of giddy journalists, mostly Spanish-speaking, and Alejandro Toledo, the former president of Peru, who sat in the front row. Mr. Vargas Llosa is currently spending the semester in the United States, teaching Latin American studies at Princeton.

Answering questions in English, Spanish and a bit of French, Mr. Vargas Llosa called the Nobel a recognition of the importance of Latin American literature and of the Spanish language, which has acquired "a sort of citizenship in the world," he said.

The announcement of the prize was greeted largely with enthusiasm in Latin America, where Mr. Vargas Llosa is widely admired for his literary greatness but is a divisive figure because of his conservative politics. He has frequently criticized leftist governments in the region, including those of Cuba and Venezuela.

In Peru, members of Congress took to the floor to praise him. People celebrated in Arequipa, the provincial city where he was born, with Peruvian television showing a band playing the national anthem in the streets.

Felipe Calderón, Mexico’s president, wrote in a Twitter message that the prize was cause for "Latin American pride."

In selecting Mr. Vargas Llosa, the Swedish Academy has once again made a literary choice tinged with politics, though this time from the right instead of the left.

Recent winners of the literature Nobel include Herta Müller, the Romanian-born German novelist; Orhan Pamuk of Turkey; and Harold Pinter of Britain.

"It’s very difficult for a Latin American writer to avoid politics," Mr. Vargas Llosa said on Thursday. "Literature is an expression of life, and you cannot eradicate politics from life."

The previous Nobel laureate of the "boom generation," Mr. García Márquez of Colombia, won the prize after wide acclaim for his masterpiece, "One Hundred Years of Solitude." In a twist worthy of one of Mr. Vargas Llosa’s subplots, Mr. García Márquez and Mr. Vargas Llosa, at one point close friends, had a violent falling out in 1976 in Mexico City, which they have yet to patch up.

The news that Mr. Vargas Llosa had won the prize reached him early on Thursday morning, when he was working in his apartment in Manhattan, preparing to set out on a walk through Central Park, he told a radio station in Peru. Initially, he thought it was a prank.

"It was a grand surprise," he said. "It’s a good way to start a New York day."

From: www.nytimes.com/October 7, 2010.