The 2010 Nobel Prize for Literature has been awarded to the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa.

He is one of Latin America’s most significant authors with a wide international audience.

He spoke of his delight: 
“Its great to have been awarded this prize. Of course, from the beginning I thought that this prize is not only for me, but for the language that I write in and the region where I belong. It’s true that Latin American literature is now big on the international stage.”

The announcement was made at the Swedish Academy in Stockholm where the Nobel Committee praised “his cartography of the structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt and defeat.”

As well as an author he is also a politician, journalist and essayist.

He first came to prominence in the 1960s with novels such as The Time of the Hero, The Green House and his huge tome Conversation in the Cathedral .

He is an eclectic writer trying his hand at comedy, murder mysteries, historical novels and political thrillers.

As well as picking up a host of international awards he ran for the Peruvian presidency in 1990 on a ticket of neo-liberal reform and was defeated by Alberto Fujimori after a second round.