Mario Vargas Llosa
(1936- ), Perú.

Widely perceived as the next Spanish-speaking Nobel Prize in Literature, Vargas Llosa is one of the most cosmopolitan writers in Latin America. He has lived in Paris, London and Barcelona as well as in Lima and other Latin America capitals. His novel La Casa Verde, 1966, established his reputation as one of the most outstanding contemporary Latin American authors. Vargas Llosa pronounced the now famous "literature is fire" statement in which he upheld the writer's function as a contributor to the founding of a new social order out of the ashes of old injustices. His political awareness, initially of a leftist-communist leaning, turned conservative and in the last Peruvian election, Vargas Llosa run for President of his country only to lose the election to the Japanese-Peruvian Alberto Fujimori.