Category Archives: Author Profiles

Mario Vargas Llosa was born 76 years ago today in Arequipa, Peru. He is one of only a dozen Latinos to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, which he received two years ago.

He is known – along with Mexican Carlos Fuentes and his rival, Colombian Gabriel García Márquez – for the Latin American boom in literature in the 1960s. Here’s a terrific article from The New York Times when he won the Nobel.

Politics remain a central theme in his works and his life – 1963’s Time of the Hero, which was burned by Peruvian soldiers because of its depiction of military schools; 1975’s Conversation in the Cathedral, describes life under 1950s Peru while dictator Manuel A. Odría rules the country; Death in the Andes, released in 1993, is a haunting tale about the disappearance of men in Peru; and 2000’s The Feast of the Goat, covers time in the Dominican Republic under Rafael Trujillo’s regime. Vargas Llosa ran unsuccessfully for president of Peru in 1990.

But Vargas Llosa isn’t always serious: 1982’s Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter is a comic novel about the title character’s affair with her nephew.

His next book, The Dream of the Celt, about Irish human rights activist Roger Casement, is scheduled to come out in June.

(Update: García Márquez passed away in April 2014. Here is his obituary from The New York Times; an overview of his life in Mental Floss magazine that first appeared in 2009; a collection of his short stories published in The New Yorker; and reaction to his death from world leaders and writers compiled by the Huffington Post.)

Gabriel García Márquez was born 85 years old today in Aracataca, Colombia. He is the greatest Latino writer alive, perhaps ever.

García Márquez is known for his classic books, One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. He was part of the Latin American boom of literature in the 1960s, along with Carlos Fuentes and his rival, Mario Vargas Llosa. (Their feud resulted in García Márquez getting a black eye.)

His books are known for their magic realism. But some books are too realistic: 1996’s News of a Kidnapping, which reflected the turmoil in his country, recently received a sales boost in Tehran because the story is similar to recent events in that country.

What makes García Márquez the most significant writer in Latino literature today? He was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature earlier than any other living recipient. But he’s also permeated the pop culture more than anyone else. Oprah Winfrey chose his works for her book club. Cholera plays a major plot point in the 2001 movie Serendipity. And, best of all, actor Tom Hanks is shown reading Solitude in the 1989 movie Turner and Hooch. What could be better than that?