2025 Mourns Cultural Icons, Including Nobel Laureate Vargas Llosa

The year 2025 saw many significant figures in culture pass away, including the renowned writer Mario Vargas Llosa. He was a Nobel Prize winner in Literature in 2010, and also received the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature in 1986 and the Cervantes Prize in 1994.

A long list of artists, actors, musicians, and writers also left us this year. Among them were Diane Keaton, Robe Iniesta, David Lynch, Verónica Echegui, Giorgio Armani, Robert Redford, and, more recently, Brigitte Bardot.

In Spanish cinema, we lost Verónica Echegui, along with Eusebio Poncela, known for his work with directors like Pedro Almodóvar. Other important names included Celso Bugallo, Juan Mariné, Tony Isbert, Juan Margallo, Mariano Ozores (who received the Goya Honorary Award in 2016), photographer and filmmaker Ramón Margareto, Manolo Zarzo, and Héctor Alterio. These individuals were crucial to understanding Spanish cinema and theater across several generations, from the New Spanish Cinema movement to modern series and art-house films.

International cinema also mourned the loss of many stars. Besides Keaton, Lynch, Redford, and Bardot, we said goodbye to Italian cinema legend Claudia Cardinale, Argentine Alejandra Darín, Joan Plowright, Michelle Trachtenberg, Émilie Dequenne, and Diane Ladd.

In music, 2025 silenced the voices and guitars of Robe Iniesta, the leader of Extremoduro and a major figure in Spanish rock, and Jorge Martínez, the heart of Ilegales. In August, Manuel de la Calva, an 88-year-old singer and a historical figure in Spanish melodic music as part of Dúo Dinámico, also passed away.

Globally, the music world said farewell to Ozzy Osbourne, the frontman of heavy metal band Black Sabbath who also had a successful solo career. We also lost D’Angelo, the American singer, songwriter, and producer who pioneered neo-soul; Mexican singer Paquita la del Barrio, famous for songs like "Rata de dos patas"; Roberta Flack, known for hits like "Killing Me Softly with His Song"; Perry Bamonte, guitarist for The Cure, who passed away on December 25; and singer Encarnita Polo.

Mario Vargas Llosa, the Hispano-Peruvian writer, died on April 13 at the age of 89 in Lima. He authored many celebrated works, including The City and the Dogs (1963), Conversation in the Cathedral (1969), and The Feast of the Goat (2000). He was a key figure in the "Latin American boom," alongside writers like Gabriel García Márquez from Colombia and Julio Cortázar from Argentina.

Other literary losses this year included Spanish writer and critic José María Guelbenzu and British novelist Jilly Cooper, both known for exploring character psychology and societal norms of their time.

The fashion world lost the iconic Italian designer Giorgio Armani. Flamenco lost Micaela Flores Amaya, known as la Chunga, a dancer and painter. We also said goodbye to Oliviero Toscani, an influential advertising photographer famous for his Benetton campaigns; Anna Turbau and Sebastião Salgado, giants in photojournalism and documentary photography; Martin Parr, a British photographer who chronicled everyday life with irony; Enrique Bastante, former guitarist for Gabinete Caligari and La Frontera; Josep Roca, who directed the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics; Ramón Mascort Amigó, Frank Gehry, and Miguel Rodríguez-Acosta, all important figures in fields from architecture to art collecting and cultural management.