Mario Vargas Llosa wins Nobel literature prize

STOCKHOLM (AP):

Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa won the 2010 Nobel Prize in literature last Thursday as the academy honoured one of the Spanish-speaking world's most acclaimed authors and an outspoken political activist who once ran for president in his tumultuous homeland.

Vargas Llosa, 74, has written more than 30 novels, plays and essays, including 'Conversation in the Cathedral' and 'The Green House.' In 1995, he won the Cervantes Prize, the most distinguished literary honour in Spanish.

Vargas Llosa is the first South American winner of the prestigious 10 million kronor (US$1.5 million) Nobel Prize in literature since Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez won in 1982.

"I am very surprised, I did not expect this," Vargas Llosa told Spanish National Radio, adding he thought it was a joke when he received the call.

"It had been years since my name was even mentioned," he added. "It has certainly been a total surprise, a very pleasant surprise, but a surprise nonetheless."

Gifted storyteller

The Swedish Academy said it honoured him for mapping the "structures of power and (for) his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt and defeat." Its permanent secretary, Peter Englund, called him "a divinely gifted storyteller" whose writing touched the reader.

"His books are often very complex in composition, having different perspectives, different voices and different time places," Englund said. "He is also doing it in a new way, he has helped evolve the art of the narration."

In the previous six years, the academy had rewarded five Europeans and one Turk with the literature Nobel, sparking criticism that it was too Euro-centric. Last year's award went to German writer Herta Mueller.

Vargas Llosa had long been mentioned as a possible Nobel candidate. He has won some of the Western world's most prestigious literary medals and his works have been translated into 31 languages, including Chinese, Croatian, Hebrew and Arabic.