Mario Vargas Llosa passed away on Sunday at the age of 89 at his home in Lima, where he had resided since 2022, his children announced on social media.
Dom Quixote, part of the Leya publishing group, which published most of Vargas Llosa’s work and was the main promoter of the author’s name and work in Portugal, expressed sorrow in a statement, noting that Vargas Llosa leaves behind “several books that will remain forever in the history of universal literature” and in the memory of all his readers.
Dom Quixote introduced the world to works such as “Conversation in the Cathedral,” “Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter,” “The Bad Girl’s Mischief,” “The Cubs and Other Stories,” “The Feast of the Goat,” “The War of the End of the World,” “The Storyteller,” “Who Killed Palomino Molero?” and “The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta,” not to mention “Two Solitudes,” which documents the dialogue between García Márquez and Vargas Llosa on Latin American literature, that took place in Lima in 1967, featuring testimonies, interviews, and an essay by the Peruvian writer on the Colombian author.
These are books that “are part of our collective memory because they helped us, decisively, to know other worlds and other realities that, without them, would remain even more distant,” the publisher emphasizes.
Describing him as a “universal writer,” Dom Quixote highlights how, “from the complex Peruvian reality,” Vargas Llosa was part of the so-called ‘boom’ of Latin American literature, along with other great writers such as Colombian Gabriel García Márquez, Argentine Julio Cortázar, and the Mexicans Carlos Fuentes and Juan Rulfo.
In 2010, the Swedish Academy awarded him the Nobel Prize for Literature, a well-deserved recognition, though in Dom Quixote’s view, a belated one.
From that date, Quetzal, an imprint of the Bertrand Circle group, began publishing the books of Mario Vargas Llosa, whom it regards as “one of the fundamental names in contemporary novels and intellectual life,” according to a note of condolence.
“Author of significant and influential books of our time, spanning novels and essays, reportage and short stories, Mario Vargas Llosa became, from ‘Conversation in the Cathedral’ to his final novel ‘I Dedicate My Silence’ (published in 2024), an inescapable figure for today’s readers — and for authors who wrote after him.”
Besides his last novel, Quetzal’s catalog includes titles like “García Márquez: Story of a Deicide,” “Conversations in Princeton,” “Harsh Times,” “The Call of the Tribe,” “The Civilization of Spectacle,” “Five Corners,” “The Discreet Hero,” “The Dream of the Celt.”
The publisher remembers that Vargas Llosa distinguished himself not only as an author of novels but also of important essays like ‘The Civilization of Spectacle’ or ‘The Call of the Tribe,’ which testify to the writer’s commitment to his time and the battles for the ideas he believed in.
Mario Vargas Llosa remains as the “last representative of a generation of Latin American giants,” a writer “committed to the values of freedom, beauty, and the relentless pursuit of love, compassion, and truth,” values that, along with “the fight against all forms of dictatorship, arbitrariness, and injustice, form the thread of his work.”
Regarding his last novel, “I Dedicate My Silence,” Quetzal describes it as “a final testimony significantly devoted to music and the pursuit of beauty,” adding that “his legacy will endure beyond life and death” and that later this year, it will publish “The Unmoving Gaze,” a 2022 literary essay.
Dom Quixote also assures that it will continue to publish the Peruvian writer’s work, launching a new edition of “The Bad Girl’s Mischief” next September, which had already been announced as part of the publisher’s 60th-anniversary celebrations.
In a statement released today, the NOVA University joins in mourning Vargas Llosa’s death, recalling the “honor” of awarding him the title of Doctor Honoris Causa in 2014, praising him as a “reference novelist in the Ibero-American and worldwide literary landscape,” who “irrevocably marked literature and contemporary thought.”
“Author of a vast and influential work that spans genres and borders — as a writer, but also politician, journalist, essayist, and university professor — Vargas Llosa was one of the leading writers of his generation offering us a critical, informed, and always provocative view of reality,” NOVA writes, recalling his time at the University and “the intellectual legacy he leaves to future generations.”
With the main literary theme being the struggle for individual freedom in the oppressive reality of Peru, Mario Vargas Llosa was influenced in his writing by Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialism, and his fame was projected with his second novel, “The Time of the Hero” (1963), followed by other successes like “The Green House” (1966), the monumental “Conversation in the Cathedral” (1969), “Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter” (1977), “The War at the End of the World” (1981), “Death in the Andes” (1993), and “The Feast of the Goat” (2000).
“The Green House,” one of his autobiographically inspired works, reveals influences of William Faulkner, and narrates the lives of characters in a brothel, known precisely as The Green House.
Vargas Llosa’s presence in the Portuguese book market also went through other publishers such as Publicações Europa-América (“The Time of the Hero”) and Quasi (“Iraq Diary,” “Israel Palestine”). “The Children’s Ship,” aimed at younger readers, was published by Presença, with translation by the poet Vasco Gato.
Mario Vargas Llosa was born in 1936, in Arequipa, Peru.
A university professor, academic, and politician, he was a major intellectual figure and one of the most important writers in Latin America and the world.
He was awarded many of the most prestigious international literary prizes, including the PEN/Nabokov Award, the Cervantes Prize, the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature, and the Grinzane Cavour Prize, in addition to the Nobel Prize in Literature.
