Mario Vargas Llosa is unchallenged as not only the greatest living writer from his continent but as the most influential intellectual in the entire Hispanic world. This is the first authoritative and comprehensive biography of the brilliant author of Conversation in the Cathedral, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter and The Feast of the Goat, who ran for the presidency of Peru in 1990 and in 2010 won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

The life of Vargas Llosa is one of variety and intrigue. He has never stopped writing and travelling and has never been far from controversy. Handsome, elegant and debonair, Vargas Llosa has always appeared the most polite and considerate of men at a personal level; yet over the course of a long career he has alienated many of his friends and colleagues. This captivating biography will shed new light on the mystery surrounding the personal, literary and political relationship between Vargas Llosa and his contemporaries, including Gabriel Garc'a M'rquez.

With privileged access to Vargas Llosa's archives, Gerald Martin brings the same meticulous research, scrupulous attention to detail and narrative verve to bear on a life that holds equal fascination with that of his fellow Nobel Prize winner Garc'a M'rquez, whose critically acclaimed biography Martin published in 2008.