Peruvian Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa said Wednesday that he expects to finish a new novel in 2013, state news agency Andina reported.
Vargas Llosa’s latest novel will be based in Peru’s northern region of Piura, where the author lived as a child.
“One knows when to start writing a book, but you never know when it is completed,” Vargas Llosa said.
Vargas Llosa is in Lima, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his first novel, La Ciudad y los Perros (The Time of the Hero), organized at the National Library by the Santillana editorial group. The speakers at the event were novelist Alonso Cueto, National Library director Ramon Mujica, and essayist Marco Martos, who is director of the National Academy of Language.
Vargas Llosa was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2010, the first Latin American author to receive the award since Mexico’s Octavio Paz in 1990. The Nobel academy in Stockholm said the prize was given “for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat.”
His work includes plays, essays, novels that range from historical to detective mysteries, comedy and political thrillers, and also newspaper columns and articles, including the fortnightly Piedra de Toque (Touchstone) in El Pais of Madrid. He is also a frequent speaker and visiting professor at universities in Europe and the United States.
