The writer, politician, and journalist Mario Vargas Llosa was born in Arequipa, Peru on March 28, 1936. From 1950 to 1952 he attended Lima's Leoncio Prado Military Academy. He was also enrolled at the Colegio Nacional San Miguel de Piura. He studied literature and law at the National University of San Marcos and received his Ph.D from the University of Madrid in 1959. Considered to be one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, he rose to fame in the 1960s with such controversial novels as The Time of the Hero, The Green House, and Conversation in the Cathedral. His works vary in genre from literary criticism and journalism to comedies, murder mysteries, historical… novels, and political thrillers. His other works include Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, The Feast of the Goat, and The War of the End of the World. He has won many awards for his writing, including the R�mulo Gallegos International Novel Prize, the Premio Leopoldo Alas in 1959, the Premio Biblioteca Breve in 1962, the Premio Planeta in1993, the Miguel de Cervantes Prize in 1994, the Jerusalem Prize in 1995, and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010.