His works are extremely popular in Germany, he sells more books here than in Britain or the United States, for example: Mario Vargas Llosa. The holder of the "Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels" (Peace Prize of the German Book Trade) is convinced that literature and political commitment belong together. Llosa was born in Arequipa (Peru) in 1936. Even during his studies of humanities and law at Lima and Madrid (doctorate on Gabriel García Márquez) he was already writing for various magazines and newspapers and published his first stories.

Llosa took his political commitment seriously and in 1989 stood as a candidate for the opposition "Frente Democrático" in the Peruvian presidential elections. In 1990, however, he lost to his political opponent Alberto Fujimori. After the coup d'état in Peru in 1992, Llosa spoke out and attacked the military-backed authoritarian regime. As a consequence, he was excluded from the Peruvian writers' association.

Vargas Llosa withdrew from politics and distanced himself by going to Europe. As an award holder of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin programme, he came to Berlin for the second time in 1998 to write and to allow himself to be inspired by the diversity and vitality of the city. He promenaded along the Kurfürstendamm, observed the people and listened to them: "It's easy to count as many as ten languages". Today, the writer, who has taught as a visiting professor at Harvard (1992), Princeton (1993) and other universities, lives with his wife in London. October 2005 saw Berlin's Humboldt University award him an Honorary Doctorate. Mario Vargas Llosa turned 70 in March 2006.