VARGAS LLOSA, (JORGE) MARIO (PEDRO)

born March 28, 1936, Arequipa, Peru Peruvian writer whose commitment to social change is evident in his novels, plays, and essays. In 1990 he was an unsuccessful candidate for president of Peru. Vargas Llosa received his early education in Cochabamba, Bol., where his grandfather was the Peruvian consul. He later attended a series of schools in Peru before entering a military school, Leoncio Prado, in Lima in 1950. After his first publication, La huida del Inca (1952; The Escape of the Inca), a three-act play, his stories began to appear in Peruvian literary reviews, and he coedited Cuadernos de composicin (195657; Composition Book) and Literatura (195859). He worked as a journalist and broadcaster and attended the University of Madrid. In 1959 he moved to Paris, where he lived until 1966. Vargas Llosa's first novel, La ciudad y los perros (1963; The City and the Dogs; Eng. trans. The Time of the Hero), was widely acclaimed. Translated into more than a dozen languages, this novel, set in the Leoncio Prado Military School, describes adolescents striving for survival in a hostile and violent environment. The corruption of the military school reflects the larger malaise afflicting Peru. The novel La casa verde (1966; The Green House), set in the Peruvian jungle, combines mythical, popular, and heroic elements to capture the sordid, tragic, and fragmented reality of its characters. Los cachorros (1967; The Cubs, and Other Stories) is a psychoanalytical portrayal of an adolescent who has been accidentally castrated. Conversacin en La Catedral (1969; Conversation in The Cathedral) deals with Manuel Odra's regime (194856). The novel Pantalen y las visitadoras (1973; Pantalen and the Visitors; Eng. trans. Captain Pantoja and the Special Service) is a satire of the Peruvian military and religious fanaticism. His semiautobiographical novel La ta Julia y el escribidor (1977; Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter) combines two distinct narrative points of view to provide a contrapuntal effect. Vargas Llosa also wrote a critical study of the fiction of Gabriel Garca Mrquez in Garca Mrquez: Historia de un deicidio (1971; Garca Mrquez: Story of a God-Killer), a study of Gustave Flaubert in La orga perpetua: Flaubert y Madame Bovary (1975; The Perpetual Orgy: Flaubert and Madame Bovary' ), and a study of the works of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus in Entre Sartre y Camus (1981; Between Sartre and Camus). After living three years in London, he was a writer-in-residence at Washington State University in 1969. In 1970 he settled in Barcelona. He returned to Lima in 1974 and lectured and taught widely throughout the world. A collection of his critical essays in English translation was published in 1978. La guerra del fin del mundo (1982; The War of the End of the World), an account of the 19th-century political conflicts in Brazil, became a best-seller in Spanish-speaking countries. In 1983 his play La Seorita de Tacna (1981; The Lady of Tacna) was performed in English in New York City. Another play, La Chunga (1986; The Jest), was also critically acclaimed. Vargas Llosa in 1990 lost his bid for the presidency of Peru in a runoff against Alberto Fujimori, an agricultural engineer and the son of Japanese immigrants.