Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa, a Nobel Prize laureate in Literature, passed away last night, Sunday, at the age of 89 in Lima, where he had been living away from public life for a few months, according to a family statement shared on X.
In a message penned by his eldest son, Álvaro, and signed by his brother Gonzalo and sister Morgana, it stated, “With deep sorrow, we announce the passing of our father, Mario Vargas Llosa, today (Sunday) in Lima, peacefully surrounded by his family.”
The Peruvian government declared a national day of mourning on Monday and decided to lower flags at public buildings, according to a decree issued shortly after midnight on Sunday.
The family did not disclose the cause of the writer’s death, but his health had been deteriorating since he returned to Lima in 2024 after leaving the Spanish capital, Madrid.
In a message on X, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte expressed her condolences for Vargas Llosa’s death, writing that “his intellectual genius and numerous works will remain a lasting legacy for future generations.”
Vargas Llosa was born into a middle-class Peruvian family and was one of the leading figures of the Latin American literary boom in the 1960s and 1970s alongside Colombian Gabriel García Márquez and Argentine Julio Cortázar.
The Peruvian-Spanish writer, known for literary masterpieces such as “The Time of the Hero” and “Conversation in the Cathedral,” was admired for his depiction of social realities but faced criticism from intellectual circles in South America due to his conservative views.
Vargas Llosa’s works have been translated into around thirty languages, and he was the first foreign writer to be inducted into the prestigious “Pleiade” series during his lifetime in 2016. He was elected a member of the Académie Française in 2021.
His passing marks the end of an era for the golden generation of Latin American literature, of which Vargas Llosa was the last great representative.
