Vargas Llosa says Nobel Prize has changed life

[November 04, 2010]  MADRID (AP) -- Mario Vargas Llosa says winning the Nobel Prize in literature last month has changed his life but not his eagerness to write.

In Madrid on Wednesday to launch his latest novel, the Peruvian writer said he is overwhelmed with interview requests and that his adored daily routine is now in chaos.

But he insists, "I will continue to write and talk. It is the supreme passion."

"Death will find me with my pen in hand," he says.

Vargas Llosa said winning the Nobel was never among his ambitions. "My aspiration was to write good novels that can be read like the ones I read and which changed my life."

His new work, "El Sueno del Celta" ("The Celt's Dream"), is a fictional history based on the life of 20th-century Irish political figure Roger Casement.

[Associated Press]

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