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Vargas Llosa was born in Arequipa, Perú, on March 28,
1936. He attended the University of San Marcos in Lima
and the University of Madrid, where he obtained the
doctorate in 1959. Writer, journalist, critic and
teacher, he has taught at the Queen Mary College and
Kings College of the University of London, Washington
State University, Pullman, the University of Puerto Rico,
Río Piedras, and Columbia University in New York. He was
a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, D.C.
He has been the recipient of many literary prizes among
which are the Barral Prix Biblioteca Breve (1962), the
Premio de la Crítica Española (1963 and 1966), the
Premio Nacional de la Novela (1967), the Premio del
Instituto Italo Latinoamericano (Italy, 1982), the Ritz
Paris Hemingway Award (1985), and the Premio
Internacional de Literatura Rómulo Gallegos. Vargas
Llosa was a journalist with La Industria, Piura, Perú,
with Radio Panamericana and La Crónica, both of Lima and
with Agence France-Presse and the French Radio-
Television Network in Paris. He was also the host of the
Peruvian television program "The Tower of
Babel". In 1990, Vargas Llosa was the unsuccessful
candidate for the Presidency of Perú for the Liberty
Movement Party. In 1996 he was one of the founding
members of the Fundación Hispano Cubana, an organisation
which aims to maintain, reinforce and develop the links
which have existed for over 500 years between the Cuban
and Spanish people. Read a larger biography published
in The Guardian (United Kingdom)
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