Mario Vargas Llosa

The Nobel Prize in literature is awarded this week, and no one deserves it more than Peru's Mario Vargas Llosa. He proved in 2001 with The Feast of the Goat that he was still going strong into his 60s; it was easily his best book in years -- harrowing, canny, and poignant. I need to re-read his works from the beginning, but I can say from memory that there are few literary experiences more powerful than The War of the End of the World, an epic masterpiece. On top of it all Vargas Llosa has shown in several novels a sparkling sense of humor. The Nobel is an honor he deserves, and more importantly it would give thousands of new readers a writer to treasure.