Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa is the winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Swedish Academy announced today. The New York Times reports:

Mr. Vargas Llosa, 74, is one of the most celebrated writers of the Spanish-speaking world, frequently mentioned with his contemporary Gabríel Garcia Márquez, who won the literature Nobel in 1982, the last South American to do so. He has written more than 30 novels, plays and essays, including "The Feast of the Goat" and "The War of the End of the World."

In selecting Mr. Vargas Llosa, the Swedish Academy has once again made a choice that is infused with politics. Recent winners included Herta Muller, the Romanian-born German novelist, in 2009, Orhan Pamuk of Turkey in 2007 and Harold Pinter of Britain in 2005.

In 1990, Mr. Vargas Llosa ran for the presidency of Peru and has been an outspoken activist in his native country.

To learn more about Vargas Llosa's books, see The Atlantic's reviews of his 1993 novel, Death in the Andes and his critique of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, The Temptation of the Impossible.

Read the full story at The New York Times.