SPAIN/PERU (Agencies) Mario Vargas Llosa, the Spanish-Peruvian novelist, poet, essayist and sometime politician, was rewarded this morning with literature's highest award, the Nobel Prize. Cited by the Swedish Academy for "his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt and defeat", the 10m SEK (£1m) award is the culmination of a literary life that began in the 1960s with novels such as
The Time of the Hero (
La ciudad y los perros, literally
The City and the Dogs, 1963/1966),
The Green House (
La casa verde, 1965/1968), and the monumental
Conversation in the Cathedral (
Conversación en la catedral, 1969/1975). He continues to write prolifically across an array of literary genres, including literary criticism and journalism. His novels include comedies, murder mysteries, historical novels, and political thrillers. Several, such as
Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (1973/1978) and
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977/1982), have been adapted as feature films. He holds dual nationality, having acquired Spanish citizenship in 1993 after a defeated run for the presidency of Peru in 1991. Vargas Llosa has mainly lived in London since the 1990s, but spends roughly three months of the year in Peru and frequently visits Spain for various conferences and enjoys vacationing here. In 1994 he was elected a member of the
Real Academia Española (Spanish Royal Academy) and has been awarded the two major Spanish prizes, the Cervantes (1994) and the Príncipe de Asturias (1986).>
