2010 Nobel Prize in Literature

The 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to Mario Vargas Llosa. The prize was announced by the Swedish Academy in Stockholm on 7 October 2010.

The citation

The citation reads: "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat".

The laureate

Mario Vargas Llosa was born in 1936 in Arequipa, Peru.

Why it matters

The Peruvian novelist is known for The Time of the Hero, Conversation in the Cathedral and The Feast of the Goat. He also stood for president of Peru in 1990.

The prize

The prize is worth 10 million Swedish kronor. It will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895.