Latin American novelist Mario Vargas Llosa dies at 89

Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian Nobel Prize–winning novelist and outspoken critic of Latin American authoritarianism who famously labeled Mexico a “perfect dictatorship,” died Sunday in Lima.

His son Álvaro reported that the writer, who had turned 89 on March 28, died peacefully surrounded by family, reports AP.

With novels that dissected authoritarianism, societal violence, war and political corruption, he was a leading voice of the emergent Latin American Boom literary movement of 50-60 years ago.

He was a prolific author and essayist with such celebrated novels as “The Time of the Hero” and “Feast of the Goat,” and won myriad prizes. The Nobel committee said it was awarding him in 2010 "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat."

“It is with deep sorrow that we announce that our father, Mario Vargas Llosa, passed away peacefully in Lima today, surrounded by his family,” read a letter signed by his children Álvaro, Gonzalo and Morgana, and posted by Álvaro on X.

“His departure will sadden his relatives, his friends and his readers around the world, but we hope that they will find comfort, as we do, in the fact that he enjoyed a long, adventurous and fruitful life, and leaves behind him a body of work that will outlive him,” they added.