Dream of the Celt

Mario Vargas Llosa has established an international reputation as one of the Latin America's most important authors. He was born in Peru in 1936 and educated at university in Lima, where he studied Humanities and Law. Always politically outspoken, from 1976 to 1979 Vargas Llosa served as President of PEN adn in 1983 presided over the commission which investigated the deaths of eight journalists killed during the Belaunde Government's campaign against the Maoist guerrilla movement. Having once declined the Prime Ministership of Peru in 1984, he was a candidate in the 1990 Presidential elections. In 2010 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Praise for Mario Vargas Llosa:

"In the star-studded world of the Latin American novel, Mario Vargas Llosa is a supernova." --Raymond Sokolov, "The Wall Street Journal"



"Vargas Llosa speaks in his own voice, sees through his own eyes. His vision is unique. His genius is unmistakable." --Eugenia Thornton, "The Plain Dealer "(Cleveland)



"The bold, dynamic and endlessly productive imagination of the Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, one of the writing giants of our time, is something truly to be admired . . . As with any great writer, [he] makes us see clearly what we have been looking at all the while but never noticed." --Alan Cheuse, "San Francisco Chronicle"



"Generous in friendship, unfailingly curious about the world at large, tireless in his quest to probe the nature of the human animal, [Vargas Llosa] is a model writer for our times." --Marie Arana, "The Washington Post"



"[Vargas Llosa] is a worldly writer in the best sense of the word: intelligent, urbane, well-traveled, well-informed, cosmopolitan, free-thinking and free-speaking." --Merle Rubin, "Los Angeles Times"



"Mario Vargas Llosa has long been a literary adventurer of the very first order . . . [He], I am convinced, can tell us stories about anything and make them dance to his inventive rhythms." --Lisa Appignanesi, "The Independent"