Members of the Princeton University Library (PUL) community join readers around the world in mourning the loss of novelist and essayist Mario Vargas Llosa on Sunday, April 13, 2025. The 2010 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Vargas Llosa was also a member of the Princeton community as a Distinguished Visitor in the Program in Latin American Studies.  

Countless researchers have visited PUL Special Collections to use the Mario Vargas Llosa Papers, which include his notebooks, works, and correspondence from 1944-1995. Prior to his time as a Distinguished Visitor, Vargas Llosa taught at Princeton University during the 1992-93 academic year, leading courses on techniques of the novel as well as Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. 

“I am basically a writer, not a teacher, but I enjoy teaching because of the students, and the chance to talk to them about good literature,” Vargas Llosa said in 2010. “Good literature is not only entertainment -- it is a fantastic entertainment -- but it’s also something that gives you a better understanding of the world in which you live. Literature is an exploration of all the possibilities of human life.” 

Visit the New York Times for additional coverage on the life and legacy of Mario Vargas Llosa.