Mario Vargas Llosa, who enchanted readers with his intellectual rigor and lyrical prose for five decades, has died at 89.

The erstwhile Marxist-turned-free-marketeer wrote historical novels, semi-autobiographical comedies, murder mysteries, political essays and plays.

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.