Mario Vargas Llosa: A Nobel Laureate’s Quiet Affair with Football

The literary world is mourning the loss of Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian novelist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate, who passed away on April 14, 2025, at the age of 89.

Renowned globally for literary masterpieces such as The Time of the Hero and Conversation in the Cathedral, Vargas Llosa was not only a defining figure of the Latin American literary boom but also one of the most influential intellectuals of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Yet behind the intellectual gravitas and literary acclaim lay a lifelong passion often overlooked: a deep and enduring love for football.

 

This devotion was on full display in the tributes that poured in from the footballing world following his death. His beloved club, Universitario de Deportes, two-time Peruvian champions, honored him as their “most illustrious fan.” In a statement on social media, the club mourned his passing:

“We deeply regret the passing of Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel Prize winner in Literature, member of the French Academy, and honorary member of Universitario de Deportes.”

They closed their message with a heartfelt farewell—“Rest in peace, Don Mario!”—accompanied by a photograph of the writer proudly waving the club’s flag during a tribute at the Estadio Monumental following his Nobel win in 2010. “The ‘U’ is a myth, a legend,” Vargas Llosa had told 80,000 Crema fans that day, expressing gratitude for being named an honorary member of the club he had supported for over 60 years.

Fittingly, the news of his death broke during a match at the Monumental Stadium—Universitario vs. Melgar—the latter representing his hometown of Arequipa. Even Alianza Lima, Universitario’s fierce rivals, joined in the national mourning, offering condolences on their official channels. The Peruvian Football Federation (FPF) also issued a statement, honoring him as an “illustrious Peruvian, Nobel laureate, and football lover,” and extending sympathies to his family, friends, and readers around the globe.

This was not performative grief—it reflected a sincere acknowledgment of Vargas Llosa’s authentic connection to the game. His love for football was not only a private enthusiasm but, on occasion, a public and literary one.

Long before he was a Nobel laureate or a political columnist, Vargas Llosa started out as a teenage crime reporter in Peru. Journalism remained an enduring thread throughout his life, most visibly in his weekly political column “Piedra de Toque” (Touchstone), syndicated across the Spanish-speaking world. But his journalistic curiosity extended beyond politics and literature. On rare but memorable occasions, it turned toward football.

The most iconic example came during the 1982 FIFA World Cup in Spain, where Vargas Llosa was not merely a spectator, but reportedly attended as a journalist. That same year, he wrote “Los hijos del fútbol” (The Sons of Football) for El País, one of Spain’s most prestigious newspapers. In the essay, he reflects on football’s power to unite and intoxicate nations. Calling it “an innocuous collective illusion,” he argued that the game satisfies deep-seated needs for ritual, tribalism, and even war—an illusion embraced by millions, yet one with real social consequences.

This piece revealed how Vargas Llosa approached football not as sport alone but as a sociocultural phenomenon. His analysis aligned him with other literary giants like Eduardo Galeano and Juan Villoro, who also explored the game’s metaphorical dimensions. For Vargas Llosa, football was never just about tactics or scorelines—it was about identity, passion, and the shared narratives that bind societies.

In interviews, he often spoke with warmth about football. One particularly telling anecdote comes from a 2010 interview with AS, where he recalled how his passion for the sport shaped even personal milestones:

“My wife always makes fun of me for one thing. We got married and went on our honeymoon to Rio. The day after we arrived, I took her to the Maracanã to see Pelé. That’s what my honeymoon was about. It was a Brazil-Germany match in which Pelé scored two goals.”

Such moments reflect a genuine, almost childlike joy that football brought to his life—parallel, but never in conflict with, his intellectual pursuits.

While Mario Vargas Llosa was not a football journalist by profession, his occasional writings and lifelong enthusiasm for the game enriched the cultural discourse around it. His rare forays into football commentary were not driven by deadlines or assignments, but by passion—by a desire to explore, through football, the same themes that animated his novels: power, community, illusion, and truth.

In remembering Vargas Llosa, it’s tempting to focus only on his vast literary legacy. But to do so would be to overlook the joy and meaning he found in the beautiful game. Football, in his eyes, was not a diversion—it was part of the human story. And like the best of literature, it offered him a mirror in which to study the world.