Through thick and thin, the Nobel laureate's descendants have been supporting their father, although there was a brief period during which they were, for obvious reasons, on their mother's side. The last public appearance was on March 28 when the author of The Time of the Hero (1963) turned 89. Álvaro posted the images on social media with the caption: "89 years. So many lives in one. Happy birthday, Varguitas!"
The eldest son, Álvaro, works as a journalist, essayist, and lecturer around the world. He had an international education, studying in Peru, England, and the United States, where he enrolled at the prestigious Princeton University. However, he graduated in International History from the London School of Economics and Political Science in England.
His passion for journalism led him to take his first steps at 15 years old in print media, followed by radio and television. It is said that his public speaking skills resemble those of his father. He has published Times of Resistance (2000) and Where Do You Put Your Money? (2012), in addition to contributing to The New York Times and The Washington Post.
He married Susana Abad, a graduate in Comprehensive Health Nutrition, with whom he has had two children, Julio, Leandro, and Aitana, but their love story ended in 2021 after two decades of marriage. "He is the father of my children, I have a lot of affection for him," replied the Peruvian to one of the followers who had commented on her new status in the biography. Álvaro was the first to support his father's decision to divorce and maintain a relationship with Preysler. Since the separation, Álvaro has found happiness with Nada Chedid, an attractive Lebanese woman who works as a Spanish translator at the Cervantes Institute in Beirut. The Nobel laureate's eldest son will inherit the Marquisate of Vargas Llosa created by the Emeritus in 2011.
Gonzalo is an accomplished political analyst and humanitarian working at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Europe. The Spanish organization Women Together recognized his work by awarding him a prize in 2013. Like his brother, Gonzalo divorced Josefina Said in 2007, with whom he has two children, Josefina and Ariadna. Both studied at the elite Le Rosey Institute in Switzerland, where in previous decades Juan Carlos I (87), Aga Khan IV, and José Ferrer, the unforgettable Cyrano from classic Hollywood and uncle of George Clooney, had also studied.
Josefina's wedding in 2023 was one of the best gifts for the writer, who could not hide his emotion because, in addition, his breakup with the Filipino socialite was still very recent.
In Spain, Gonzalo attracted great media interest because he started dating Genoveva Casanova (48), the ex-wife and mother of the twin children of Cayetano Martínez de Irujo (62), who will soon marry Bárbara Mirjan (29). Genoveva's appearance in Stockholm in 2010 when Vargas Llosa was awarded the Nobel Prize surprised many in our country. But they broke up a few months later. According to the Mexican, the reasons were that she spent a lot of time in her home country taking care of her sick mother, while he had devoted himself body and soul to his work in Libya.
The youngest is Morgana, the only one born in Spain, specifically in Barcelona, where the author of Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter lived one of the richest periods of his life. At that time, the city was one of the European intellectual hubs where Gabriel García Márquez was also present, who would soon become his staunch enemy. But that's another story.
Like her brothers, Morgana received an exquisite education between Peru and England, where she graduated from the London School of Economics. As a photographer by profession, she has held several exhibitions such as the award-winning "Look at Me, Lima," and has edited the books Diary of Iraq (2003) and The Photos of Paradise (2003). She also worked for 12 years at El País producing photo reports in Israel, Albania, Ecuador, and Palestine.
Since 2006, she has been married to Stefan Reich Roden and has two daughters, Isabella and Anaïs, who are "the greatest gift life has given me," she admitted to the aforementioned newspaper.