The Nobel Prize in Literature 2010 for Mario Vargas Llosa was the culmination of a long and illustrious career, in the course of which he has become famous for his novels, but also notorious for his (often polemical) participation in intellectual and political debates. Both areas of his writing, fiction as well as essays and journalism, are ongoing endeavours which he pursues with the same vigour today as he did fifty years ago. The aim of this book is to provide readers with an overview and a general evaluation of Vargas Llosa's large body of work, and to discuss the contradictory reactions which he provokes.

This Companion differs from the approach of other introductions to Vargas Llosa which divide his work into different phases, corresponding to the changes in his political opinion. It challenges the received opinion about his notorious development: supposedly from a youthful Marxist writer, supporter of the Cuban revolution, who wanted literature to play a part in radical social change, to a liberal, right-wing propagandist of free-market politics who, nonetheless, continues to produce great literature that manages to transcend his political opinions. By contrast, this book highlights the many continuities in his long writing career: within his fiction, it follows recurring themes, formal features and patterns of language – three main factors, according to Vargas Llosa's theory, in transforming reality into fiction.