Peru's Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel prize-winning novelist, dies at 89

LIMA (Reuters) -Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, who enchanted readers with his intellectual rigor and lyrical prose for five decades and nearly became president of his country, died on Sunday aged 89.

He died in the country's capital Lima surrounded by his family and "at peace," his son Alvaro Vargas Llosa, a well-known political commentator, said on X.

A leading light in the 20th-century Latin American literature boom, Vargas Llosa won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2010 for works like "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter," "Death in the Andes," and "The War of the End of the World."

But early on he abandoned the socialist ideas that were embraced by many of his peers, and his dabbling in politics and conservative views annoyed much of Latin America's leftist intellectual class.

In 1990, he ran for president of Peru, saying he wanted to save his country from economic chaos and a Marxist insurgency.

He lost in the run-off to Alberto Fujimori, a then-unknown agronomist and university professor who defeated the insurgents but was later jailed for human rights crimes and corruption.

Frustrated by his loss, the writer moved to Spain but remained influential in Latin America, harshly criticizing a new wave of strident leftist leaders led by then-Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

In his dozens of novels, plays and essays, Vargas Llosa told stories from various viewpoints and experimented with form -moving back and forth in time and switching narrators.

His work crossed genres and established him as a foundational figure in a generation of writers that led a resurgence in Latin American literature in the 1960s.

His books often examined the unnerving relationships between leaders and their subjects. "The Feast of the Goat" (2000) details the brutal regime of Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo, while "The War of the End of the World" (1981) tells the true story of a fanatical preacher whose flock dies in a deadly war with Brazil's army in the 1890s.

"His intellectual genius and vast body of work will remain an everlasting legacy for future generations," Peru's President Dina Boluarte said in a post in X, calling him the "most illustrious Peruvian of all time."

NOVELS FED BY EXPERIENCE

Born to middle-class parents in Arequipa, Peru, on March 28, 1936, Vargas Llosa frequently drew from personal experience and his family, at times inserting characters based on his own life into his tales.

His acclaimed debut novel, "The Time of the Hero" (1963), was loosely based on his teenage life as a cadet at a military academy in Lima, while his 1993 memoir, "A Fish in the Water," focused on his 1990 presidential run.

Other works expressed deep concern for his country. "The Storyteller" (1987) deals with the clash of Indigenous and European cultures in Peru, while "Death in the Andes" (1993) recounts the haunting years of the Shining Path guerrilla movement.

"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, Vargas Llosa continuously experimented. "The Bad Girl" (2006) was his first try at a love story and was widely praised as one of his best.

DENOUNCED CASTRO, CHAVEZ

In the 1970s, Vargas Llosa, a one-time supporter of the Cuban revolution, denounced Fidel Castro, maddening many of his leftist literary colleagues like Colombian writer and fellow Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

In 1976, the two had a famous argument, throwing punches outside a theater in Mexico City. A friend of Garcia Marquez said Vargas Llosa was upset that the Colombian had consoled his wife during an estrangement but Vargas Llosa refused to discuss it.

Vargas Llosa became a staunch supporter of free markets mixed with libertarian ideals. Despite being outspoken on political issues, Vargas Llosa said he was a reluctant politician when he ran for president of Peru.

"In reality, I never had a political career," Vargas Llosa once 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."

His personal life was worthy of a novel itself - and indeed, "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter" (1977) was loosely based on the story of his first marriage at the age of 19 to Julia Urquidi, 10 years his senior and the former wife of his mother's brother.

His second wife was his first cousin Patricia - but he left her in 2015 after 50 years for the charms of Isabel Preysler, the mother of singer Enrique Iglesias. That relationship ended in 2022. He had three children, including Alvaro, with Patricia.

(Reporting by Reuters staff; Additional reporting by Diego Ore, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien and Edwina Gibbs)