Entered in 1965 at the Catholic University, where he studied literature and law. Also graduated from law school at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. Later, in the early 1970s, he traveled to Paris and Madrid, to pursue graduate studies in sociology and law respectively.
In 1977 he began teaching at the University Federico Villareal.
Alan Garcia was climbing positions within his ARPA party, from national organizing secretary (during the presidential campaign of Armando Villanueva, 1980) to general secretary in 1982. In 1978 he was secretary of the Constitutional Convention.
On April 14 of that year he won the election with 52 percent of the vote, and was sworn in on 28 July presidential.
In 1990 he was succeeded in office by Alberto Fujimori.
In 1992 he was persecuted and sought refuge in the embassy of Colombia.
After an eight-year exile from Colombia and Paris, he returned to the country to represent the elections of April 2001, which was second in the overall vote. A week before the ballot, following recommendations of the Inter-American Court, the Supreme Court of Peru suspended the charges against him.
In April 2006 he returned to run for his party's presidential elections, in which in the first round came in second behind the nationalist leader Ollanta Humala. With it had to face in the second round, held in June, in which the winner was getting 54% of the votes.
Alan Garcia declared his intention to direct the government's attention to the most urgent needs of Peru and its people, as well as dealing with debt and worrying inflation and unemployment. He defended the position of Latin American countries against the impositions of the large international banking and financial system proposed strengthening of Peru.
He was married twice: Carla Buscaglia and Pilar Nores.
He did not meet his father until age five, because he had been in prison for his supporting of APRA.
