2: Peru's eminent novelist and former presidential candidate MARIO VARGAS LLOSA (pronounced YO-sah). LLOSA is the author of many books including "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter," (which was made into a movie, based on his own relationship with his 32-year old aunt, who he married at the age of 19), "The Storyteller," and "In Praise of the Stepmother." A London Times writer says of LLOSA's novels that they are "among the finest coming out of Latin America." LLOSA lived for many years in Europe. He said of his country, "Peru is for me a kind of incurable disease, and my feeling for her is intense, bitter, and full of violence that chracterizes passion." In 1990 he ran an unsuccessful bid for the Presidency of Peru. Running on a reformist platform, LLOSA was threatened by the Shining Path guerillas whose "violent terrorism" LLOSA pledged to thwart. LLOSA has a new memoir about his personal and political life, "A Fish in the Water." (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux).
Copyright 1994 Fresh Air