Vargas Llosa Wins Nobel Prize

Acclaimed Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa won the 2010 Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday.

The 74-year-old was honored by the Swedish Academy “for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt and defeat.”

Vargas Llosa is the first South American winner of the prestigious award since Gabriel GarcÍa Márquez received the prize in 1982.

A figure in Latin American fiction since 1963, when his debut novel, “The Time of the Hero,” was published, Vargas Llosa has written more than 30 novels, plays and essays. His essays also include “Conversation in the Cathedral” and “The Green House.”

He was awarded the Cervantes Prize – the Spanish-speaking world’s most distinguished literary honor – in 1995.

Vargas Llosa, who teaches at Princeton University, has a voice in Peruvian politics, too. He was a candidate for president in 1990.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.