The Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa (born 1936), novelist, critic, journalist, screenwriter, and essayist, abandoned writing at least temporarily in 1990 to run unsuccessfully for president of his country.

Like many of the characters in his fiction, (Jorge) Mario (Pedro) Vargas Llosa, internationally acclaimed Peruvian writer and recipient of almost every literary award short of the Nobel Prize, is something of a paradox. An author at home in many forms of writing, Vargas Llosa once described literature as the passion of his life. As his country's leading presidential candidate, campaigning for the center-right coalition, Fredemo, or the Democratic Front, he had come a long way from the days when he supported the Cuban revolution and was an active member in Cahuide, a small underground remnant of Peru's then-outlawed Communist Party.

He had also come a long way from his student days in the University of San Marcos when he longed...