The Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa is one of the major Latin American literary figures of the last five decades. A prolific writer, he has so far published sixteen novels, some shorter narrative works, eight plays, a children's book, five major critical studies of other writers, and a large number of essay collections concerning literature, politics and wider social and intellectual issues, many of which derive from the journalistic work that he has always pursued in parallel with his fictional writing. From the beginning of his career, literature and politics were two sides of his vocation as a writer that have coexisted and influenced each other.

Born in the Peruvian town of Arequipa on 28 March 1936, Mario Vargas Llosa spent a happy early childhood with his mother and her family in Cochabamba, Bolivia, where he learnt to read and write. Encouraged by his maternal family, he developed a passion for literature which would determine his whole life. He found that the ‘magic’ of fictions opened up worlds, allowing him to ‘break the barriers of time and space’ and to turn ‘dreams into life and life into dreams’. Although writing stories proved to be a difficult undertaking which required discipline, patience and lots of reading and imitating the great masters, he found it a delightful occupation.