Vargas Llosa wins literature Nobel

Peruvian-born writer and one-time presidential candidate Mario Vargas Llosa, a chronicler of human struggles against brutal authority in Latin America, won the 2010 Nobel prize for literature on Thursday. The committee awarding the 10 million crown ($1.50 million) prize said Vargas Llosa won "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt and defeat".
Vargas Llosa, who has both Spanish and Peruvian citizenship, made his international breakthrough in 1966 with the novel "The Time of the Hero", a story of murder at a military academy. He is the first Latin American winner for literature since Mexico's Octavio Paz in 1990 and he joins Latin winners such as Garbriel Garcia Marquez of Colombia and Pablo Neruda of Chile. In his works, Vargas Llosa built on his experiences of life in Peru in the late 1940s and the 1950s.
A conservative who was criticised by many contemporary Latin American writers for abandoning leftist ideals, he ran for president in Peru in 1990. He lost to Alberto Fujimori, who later had to flee the country and was subsequently convicted of various crimes.
"For years I haven't thought about the Nobel prize at all. They didn't mention me in recent years so I didn't expect it," Vargas Llosa was quoted by Colombian radio as saying. "It's been a surprise, very nice, but a surprise nevertheless." Peru's president, Alan Garcia, said the award was overdue.
"This is a great day, because the world has recognised the visionary intelligence of Mario Vargas Llosa and his libertarian and democratic ideals." Vargas Llosa is at the centre of one of the literary world's most famous feuds. In 1976, Vargas Llosa punched his friend and fellow writer Garcia Marquez in public. The two ceased speaking to each other and for decades the reason behind the fight has been a mystery. A photographer who captured Garcia Marquez - and his black eye - wrote about the incident in 2007 and suggested it concerned Vargas Llosa's wife. Vargas Llosa has been tipped for years to win the prize. This year he was a 25-1 outsider, behind American novelist and favourite Cormac McCarthy and Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong'o, according to British betting firm Ladbrokes.