Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa has won the Nobel Prize for Literature for what judges have called “his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat”.
Vargas Llosa wasn’t among the favourites for the prize, but the bookies usually get the winner wrong. The L Magazine could be crowing “I told you so“ as they noted "South Americans and Scandinavians have been underrepresented in the selections of recent years”, but no-one predicted the Peruvian author would score the coveted prize.
Over at Spanish-language paper El Pais they’re keen to claim him as their own (as Australian do with New Zealanders) because he owns a house in Madrid. Vargas Llosa was shy of his chances to the paper back in August when he told them “Thinking about it [the Nobel Prize] is bad for the form…”
If you’re new to the author and need some hints for learned dinner party conversation, the Guardian’s cheatsheet of his five best novels will allow you to say you’ve been a fan since Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter.