Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian author who helped put Latin American literature on the world stage in the 1960s, dazzled readers with a string of international best-sellers for the next four decades, according to Reuters. Vargas Llosa, who won the Nobel Prize for literature on Thursday, also was a prominent political columist who unsuccessfully ran for president of Peru in 1990 as a conservative after switching from leftism. After the election he moved to Spain and became a Spanish citizen but remained influential in Peru and returned there often. In more than 30 novels, plays and essays, Vargas Llosa developed his technique of telling stories from various viewpoints, sometimes separated by space and time. His work crossed genres and established him as a key figure in the "boom" generation, which led a resurgence in Latin American literature in the 1960s. Vargas Llosa frequently drew from personal experience. His acclaimed debut novel, "The Time of the Hero" (1962), was loosely based on his teenage life at a military academy in Lima while his 1993 memoir, "A Fish in the Water," recounted his presidential run in 1990. "An author's work is fed by his own experience and, over the years, becomes richer," Vargas Llosa told Reuters in an interview in Madrid in 2001. As his range of experiences grew, so did his writing. Vargas Llosa continuously experimented with form, perspective and his subjects. One of his last novels, "The Bad Girl" (2006), was his first try at a love story and was widely praised as one of his best. Born to middle-class parents in Arequipa, Peru, on March 28, 1936, Vargas Llosa lived in Bolivia and Lima before moving to Spain to study literature. He made a home in Madrid but retained citizenship and influence in Peru, where he wrote for national newspapers about current events. His work was translated into more than 20 languages. In the 1970s, Vargas Llosa, a one-time supporter of the Cuban revolution, denounced Fidel Castro's communism, maddening many of his leftist literary colleagues. Some never forgave him for drifting to the right. He became a staunch supporter of free markets mixed with libertarianism, expressing a deep faith in democracy and hatred for authoritarian regimes. In 1971 Vargas Llosa published a study of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Colombia's master of magic realism. But the two had a famous falling-out, throwing punches outside a theater in Mexico City in 1976. A friend of Garcia Marquez -- who also won the Nobel for literature in 1982 -- said Vargas Llosa was upset that the Colombian had consoled his wife during an estrangement but Vargas Llosa refused to discuss it, inviting endless speculation. In 1990, Vargas Llosa took his politics public and ran for the Peruvian presidency, advocating strict free-market economic reforms. He lost to Alberto Fujimori, a then-unknown university professor and later was accused of human rights crimes committed during his 10-year presidency. "In reality, I never had a political career," he said. "I took part in politics under very special circumstances ... and I always said that whether I won or lost the elections, I was going back to my literary, intellectual job, not politics."
