India, April 14 -- Had Mario Vargas Llosa stopped writing in the late 1970s, he would still have been acclaimed not just as one of the premier authors of the Latin American Boom, but as one of the greatest from any country.

His novels like The Time of the Hero (1963), Conversation in the Cathedral (1969), and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977) upended conventions with their treatment of themes and use of techniques such as multiple perspectives, streams of consciousness, and blending dialogue and narration. But Vargas Llosa kept writing as his beliefs kept evolving. The person who once fearlessly exposed power structures became their unlikely ally.

In his youth, he was influenced by socialist and Marxist ideas, in common with other ...