Mario Vargas Llosa attending the opening of the Hispanic Studies Department in 2012, with Alison Ribeiro de Menezes, Fabienne Viala and John King

Hispanic Studies at Warwick is saddened to hear of the death of Mario Vargas Llosa, Peruvian Nobel Prize Winning author and one of the greats of Latin American literature. Famous for works such as La casa verde, Conversación en la Catedral and La fiesta del Chivo, Vargas Llosa was also a major essayist, with collections such as Making Waves, Touchstones and The Temptation of the Impossible translated by our colleague, Professor John King. King was the first scholar to focus on Vargas Llosa’s non-fiction. Their collaboration began in the late 1970s, with Vargas Llosa visiting Warwick half a dozen times over subsequent decades and often fitting in a trip to the RSC in Stratford at the same time. Warwick held a two-day conference to mark Vargas Llosa’s 70^th birthday in 2006, out of which would arise the essays in The Cambridge Companion to Mario Vargas Llosa, edited by Efrain Kristal and King. In 2004 Warwick awarded Vargas Llosa an honorary doctorate, and in 2012 his visit, coinciding with the publication of El sueño del Celta, also marked the foundation of the Hispanic Studies Department (see photo). We send condolences to his family, friends and wide literary circle.