A Nobel Prize winner’s journey from ‘posh Lima’ to Cricklewood

Mario Vargas Llosa: A Life by Gerald Martin. This biography of the Nobel Prize-winning Peruvian novelist follows not only Llosa’s personal and artistic trajectories, but also his political journey (from the far left to the far right) and his physical one (from “posh Lima,” in the words of one contemporary, to Cricklewood, England). Martin’s book is “chatty yet coolly analytical,” The Guardian wrote, tracing the “path of a novelist who began by dissecting oligarchy with surgical precision and ended happily dining among its ranks.” Pre-order Mario Vargas Llosa from Bloomsbury.