Novelist, playwright and essayist Varga Llosa of Peru was selected Thursday by the Swedish Academy to receive the 2010 Nobel Prize for Literature for his vivid description of power and corruption in Latin America in his works.

The 74-year-old Peruvian was the first South American to receive the award and the $1.5 million cash prize that goes with it since Colombian Gabriel Garcia Marquez won the same recognition in 1982. Llosa is also the first Spanish-language writer to win the prestigious award since Mexican Octavio Paz in 1990.

Llosa said he was surprised by the award and expressed gratitude to the Swedish Academy when interviewed in New York, where he currently resides. He teaches at the Princeton University in New Jersey.

Llosa's first novel in 1963, "The Time of the Hero" (La Ciudad y los Perros)," which was based on his experiences at a Peruvian military academy, won the Spanish Critics Award but also angered Peru's military for allegedly being false. The military burned 1,000 copies of the novel later, with some generals calling him a communist.

The Peruvian's writing career started at age 15 when he was a crime reporter. By the 70s, he was a critic of Cuba's Fidel Castro.

In 1990, Llosa ran for president but lost to Alberto Fujimori. Thereafter he acquired a Spanish citizenship and lived in Madrid and London. In 1994, he was elected to the Spanish Academy, the first Latin American writer to do so.