When Mario Vargas Llosa, author of The Time of the Hero and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, died in April 2025 he was internationally renowned and celebrated, and arguably the world’s greatest living writer. He was also indisputably the most controversial: he was never out of the headlines in more than six decades of literary and political activity. But who was he really and what was at the core of his fierce adherence to ‘freedom’ above all else? And what was behind the most famous left hook in literary history when in Mexico City in 1976 he knocked his friend Gabriel García Márquez to the ground?

We are delighted that Gerald Martin will be at the Litfest 2026 ‘Autumn Season’ to talk about Vargas Llosa’s extraordinary life, his political journey from left to right and to answer key questions about a leading and hugely influential writer.

Gerald Martin — Mario Vargas Llosa: A Life