Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel literature laureate and a giant of Latin American letters for many decades, has died, his son said Sunday. He was 89.

Mr. Vargas Llosa, who ran for Peru’s presidency in 1990 and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010, transformed episodes from his personal life into books that reverberated far beyond the borders of his native country.

Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, who enchanted readers with his intellectual rigor and lyrical prose for five decades and nearly became president of his country, died on Sunday aged 89.