“A few days ago, in view of some complications related to Covid, he was admitted to a clinic in Madrid,” wrote the 86-year-old writer’s son, specifying that “thanks to the treatment, his condition is progressing favorably.”
“He and his family appreciate the signs of affection we are receiving and ask the press to respect his privacy,” concludes the message signed by his children Álvaro, Gonzalo and Morgana.
At the beginning of April, Vargas Llosa presented his latest book in Madrid, “The quiet gaze (by Pérez Galdós)”, an essay on the Spanish writer Benito Pérez Galdós, which he had to take to the Buenos Aires Book Fair (April 28 -May 16).
In addition, he was scheduled to participate next week in the presentation in Madrid of a biography of “Cervantes” by Santiago Muñoz Machado, an act that was postponed.
– The last of the “boom” –
Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010, Vargas Llosa is the last representative of the golden generation of Latin American literature.
A universal writer based on the complex Peruvian reality, Vargas Llosa was part of the so-called Latin American ‘boom’ together with other greats such as the Colombian Gabriel García Márquez, the Argentine Julio Cortázar or the Mexicans Carlos Fuentes and Juan Rulfo.
Born in the southern Peruvian city of Arequipa on March 28, 1936 in a middle-class family, he was educated by his mother and maternal grandparents in Cochabamba (Bolivia) and later in Peru.
After studying at the Military Academy of Lima, he obtained a degree in Literature and took his first steps in journalism at a very young age.
He settled in 1959 in Paris, where he married his aunt-in-law Julia Urquidi, 10 years older (who would later inspire “La Tía Julia y el escribidor”) and practiced various professions: translator, Spanish teacher and journalist for Agence France -Press.
Years later, he broke up with Urquidi and married his first cousin and niece of his ex-wife, Patricia Llosa, with whom he had three children and a fifty-year relationship until 2015, when he divorced her and joined Isabel Preysler, ex-wife of the singer Julio Iglesias.
Between 1970 and 1974 he lived in Barcelona, where he met and was a great friend of García Márquez, until they distanced themselves due to a personal matter about which there are many versions.
– A prolific writer –
Vargas Llosa is the author of novels, short stories, a volume of memoirs, essays, plays, books of poetry and newspaper articles, which he still publishes weekly in the Spanish newspaper El País.
His long literary career began in 1959, when he published his first book of short stories, ‘Los Jefes’, with which he won the Leopoldo Alas Prize. But he gained notoriety with the publication of the novel ‘The city and the dogs’, in 1963, followed three years later by ‘The green house’. His prestige was consolidated with his novel ‘Conversation in the Cathedral’ (1969).
They were followed by ‘Pantaleón and the visitors’, ‘Aunt Julia and the writer’, ‘The war at the end of the world’, ‘Who killed Palomino Molero?’, ‘Lituma in the Andes’ and ‘The fish in the water ‘ (memories of his election campaign), ‘The Goat’s Party’ or ‘The Celt’s Dream’, published shortly before receiving the Nobel Prize.
Vargas Llosa obtained Spanish nationality in 1993.
