Nobel Prize for Literature 2010, he is one of Latin-American literature’s greatest authors, whose works have been translated into over 20 languages. After graduating with a degree in literature and law from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, in 1959 he left for Spain, where he obtained a PhD in Philosophy and Literature from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. His commitment to literature bore fruit when his first publication, a collection of short stories published under the title «Los jefes» (The Bosses), was awarded the Leopoldo Arias prize.
In 1964, he returned to Peru before travelling to Havana, where he sat on the jury of the Casa de las Américas Awards and on the editorial board of the «Casa de las Américas» magazine. Later, he worked as a translator for UNESCO in Greece with Julio Cortázar and lived in Europe until 1974, mainly in Paris, London and Barcelona. In 1975, he was appointed a member of the Peruvian Academy of Language and in 1976, he was elected President of the International Pen Club. In 1994, he was appointed a member of the Royal Spanish Academy. In 1981, he returned to Peru, where he directed the television programme The Tower of Babel. In 1987, he emerged as the political leader of the Freedom Movement and, three years later, he ran for President of the Republic for the Frente Democrático-FREDEMO party.
He currently writes for the newspaper El País and the monthly cultural magazine «Letras Libres». He has been a Visiting Professor or Resident Writer at various universities around the world, such as Queen Mary College and King's College at the University of London, the University of Cambridge, the Scottish Arts Council, Washington State University, Columbia University, the Smithsonian's Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Florida International University and Harvard University.