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Books : Literature & Fiction : Authors, A-Z : ( V ) : Vargas Llosa, Mario
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A New York Times Notable Book of 2007
"Splendid, suspenseful, and irresistible . . . A contemporary love story that explores the mores of the urban 1960s--and 70s and 80s."--The New York Times Book Review
Ricardo Somocurcio is in love with a bad girl. He loves her as a teenager known as "Lily" in Lima in 1950, when she flits into his life one summer and disappears again without explanation. He loves her still when she reappears as a revolutionary in 1960s Paris, then later as Mrs. Richardson, the wife of a wealthy Englishman, and again as the mistress of a sinister Japanese businessman in Tokyo. However poorly she treats him, he is doomed to worship her. Charting Ricardo's expatriate life through his romances with this shape-shifting woman, Vargas Llosa has created a beguiling, epic romance about the life-altering power of obsession.
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Ricardo, at an early age, sees his life-long dream fulfilled: to live in Paris. But an encounter with a past love will change everything. The young girl, adventurer, pragmatic, wicked, calculating, and mischievous, will drag him out of his small world of ambitions. This is the story of the intimate love that occupies more than three decades of Ricardo s life, and it is also a fascinating tale traveling through Europe, South America, and Japan. Starring in the backdrop are Peru s history from 1950 to 1987 and its swinging from democracy to dictatorship; Paris in the sixties and its great philosophers Sartre and Camus; the decade of the 70s in London, the birth of a new culture, drugs, music, hippies, freedom of love; Japan s big dealer lords, and, finally, Spain halfway through the 80s. Creating an admirable tension between comedy and tragedy, Mario Vargas Llosa plays with reality and fiction to release a story in which love presents itself as indefinable, owner of a thousand faces, just like the mischievous girl. Passion and distance, chance and destiny, pain and pleasure... Which is the true face of love? Description in Spanish: Ricardo ve cumplido, a una edad muy temprana, el sue que en su Lima natal aliment desde que ten uso de raz : vivir en Par . Pero el rencuentro con un amor de adolescencia lo cambiar todo. La joven, inconformista, aventurera, pragm ica e inquieta, lo arrastrar fuera del peque mundo de sus ambiciones. Testigos de ocas convulsas y florecientes en ciudades como Londres, Par , Tokio o Madrid, que aqu son mucho m que escenarios, ambos personajes ver sus vidas entrelazarse sin llegar a coincidir del todo. Sin embargo, esta danza de encuentros y desencuentros har crecer la intensidad del relato p ina a p ina hasta propiciar una verdadera fusi del lector con el universo emocional de los protagonistas. Creando una admirable tensi entre lo c ico y lo tr ico, Mario Vargas Llosa juega con la realidad y la ficci para liberar una historia en la que el amor se nos muestra indefinible, due de mil caras, como la ni mala. Pasi y distancia, azar y destino, dolor y disfrute... Cu es el verdadero rostro del amor?
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Mario Vargas Llosa's latest novel, "La Fiesta del Chivo" (The Goat's Feast), recounts the story of General Trujillo's tyrannical dictatorship in the Dominican Republic during the 1960s and the life of a woman named Urania Cabral. Trujillo, nicknamed "El Chivo" (The Goat), nearly destroyed an entire country through his gruesome ways. Urania, having fled at a young age, promised to never return. Why does she return? Why has she remained afraid and lonely since the age of 14? Why hasn't love reached out to her? Can she confront the past in Santo Domingo and find the answers?
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One of the most important literary works of post-Civil War Spain, Nada is the semiautobiographical story of an orphaned young woman who leaves her small town to attend university in war-ravaged Barcelona. Edith Grossman’s vital new translation captures Carmen Laforet’s feverish energy, powerful imagery, and subtle humor. Nada, which includes an illuminating Introduction by Mario Vargas Llosa, is one of the great novels of twentieth-century Europe.
“Laforet vividly conveys the strangeness of Barcelona in the 1940s, a city that has survived civil war only to find itself muted by Franco’s dictatorship…The spirit of sly resistance that Laforet’s novel expresses, its heroine’s determination to escape provincial poverty and to immerse herself in ‘lights, noises, the entire tide of life,’ has lost none of its power of persuasion.” — The New York Times Book Review
“That this complex, mature and wise novel was written by someone in her early 20s is extraordinary….But after six decades, this first novel has lost none of its power and originality, and we are fortunate to have it in this fine translation.”-- The Washington Post, chosen as a Washington Post Best Book of the Year
“Nada does indeeed recall Sartre and Camus, but it is fresher and more vibrant than either, and with its call to intuition and feelings rather than intellect, it cuts deeper….[A] mesmerizing new translation….a beautiful evocation of the tidal wave of late adolescent feeling….[Laforet] wrote Nada when she was only 23, yet the book resonates with frightening maturity, sadness and depth…a work of genius.” — Los Angeles Times
“A brilliantly subtle book whose power lies in what goes unsaid…”Nada” is a skillfully written, multifaceted novel, and its eerie relevance to today’s political climate and social attitudes is difficult to ignore.” -- The San Francisco Chronicle
“Laforet’s moody and sepulchral debut novel…has been given new life by acclaimed translator Grossman….Andrea’s narration is gorgeously expressive, rippling with emotion and meaning…fans of European lit will welcome this Spanish Gothic to the States with open arms and a half-exasperated, “What took you so long?”–Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)
“This Modern Library edition should be a keeper.” — Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“Carmen Laforet finds new life with this beautiful translation…dazzling in its approach…Laforet’s talent in addressing complex familial and social issues us nothing short of amazing…her wiser-than-thou nature and clever handling of bitter dialogue [are] the mark of a truly gifted writer…..a timeless work of art.” -- The Fredericksburg Free Lance Star
“Nada is neither moralist, nor prolix, unlike most other Spanish literature of the time and before. This is a modern voice, philosophically and stylistically, talking to us in freedom from the darkest hours of the victory of fascism….remarkably sophisticated.” -- The Independent
“[A] remarkable achievement…Nada’s work is sui generis, a gothic horror story which deserves the widest possible readership.” — The Sunday Herald
“Edith Grossman’s translation makes the rich, dense descriptions....sound perfectly natural in English; not a beat is missed, not an adjective misplaced. Let us hope that her fine, readable version will enable Nada to achieve, in the English-reading world, the perennial popularity of a great twentieth-century novel.” -- TLS
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Deep within the remote backlands of nineteenth-century Brazil lies Canudos, home to all the damned of the earth: prostitutes, bandits, beggars, and every kind of outcast. It is a place where history and civilization have been wiped away. There is no money, no taxation, no marriage, no census. Canudos is a cauldron for the revolutionary spirit in its purest form, a state with all the potential for a true, libertarian paradise--and one the Brazilian government is determined to crush at any cost.
In perhaps his most ambitious and tragic novel, Mario Vargas Llosa tells his own version of the real story of Canudos, inhabiting characters on both sides of the massive, cataclysmic battle between the society and government troops. The resulting novel is a fable of Latin American revolutionary history, an unforgettable story of passion, violence, and the devastation that follows from fanaticism.
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In a remote Andean village, three men have disappeared. Peruvian Army corporal Lituma and his deputy Tomás have been dispatched to investigate, and to guard the town from the Shining Path guerrillas they assume are responsible. But the townspeople do not trust the officers, and they have their own ideas about what forces claimed the bodies of the missing men. To pass the time, and to cope with their homesickness, Tomás entertains Lituma nightly with the sensuous, surreal tale of his precarious love affair with a wayward prostitute. His stories are intermingled with the ongoing mystery of the missing men.
Death in the Andes is an atmospheric suspense story and a political allegory, a panoramic view of contemporary Peru from one of the world's great novelists.
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Deep within the remote backlands of 19th century Brazil sits Canudos, a libertarian's paradise. Home of prostitutes, bandits, and beggars, Canudos embodies the revolutionary spirit in its purest and most apocalyptic form. In one of his most brilliant and tragic novels, Mario Vargas Llosa creates an unforgettable tale of passion, idealism, adventure, and man's struggle to be free. It is an exhaustively documented account of a historical event and a fundamental book in 20th century literature. Description in Spanish: ''A finales del siglo XX, en las tierras pauperrimas del noreste de Brasil, el chispazo de las arengas del Consejero, personaje mesianico y enigmatico, prendera la insurreccion de los desheredados. En circunstancias extremas como aquellas, la consecucion de la dignidad vital solo podra venir de la exaltacion religiosa - el convencimiento fanatico de la eleccion divina de los marginados del mundo- y del quebranto radical de las reglas que rigen el mundo de los poderosos. Asi, grupos de miserables acudiran a la llamada de la revolucion de Canudos, la cuidad donde se asentara esta comunidad de personajes que dificilmente desapareceran de la imaginacion del lector: el Beatito, el Leon de Natuba, Maria Quadrado. Frente a todos ellos, una trama polÃtico- militar se articula para detener con toda su fuerza el movimiento que amenaza con expandirse."
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A Haunting tale of power, corruption,
and the complex search for identityConversation in The Cathedral takes place in 1950s Peru during the dictatorship of Manuel A. Odría. Over beers and a sea of freely spoken words, the conversation flows between two individuals, Santiago and Ambrosia, who talk of their tormented lives and of the overall degradation and frustration that has slowly taken over their town.
Through a complicated web of secrets and historical references, Mario Vargas Llosa analyzes the mental and moral mechanisms that govern power and the people behind it. More than a historic analysis, Conversation in The Cathedral is a groundbreaking novel that tackles identity as well as the role of a citizen and how a lack of personal freedom can forever scar a people and a nation.
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La ciudad y los perros no solamente es un ataque contra la crueldad ejercida a un grupo de jóvenes alumnos del Colegio Militar Leoncio Prado, sino también una crítica frontal al concepto erróneo de la virilidad, de sus funciones y de las consecuencias de una educación castrense malentendida. Aunada a la brutalidad propia de la vida militar, a lo largo de las páginas de esta extraordinaria novela, la vehemencia y la pasión de la juventud se desbocan hasta llegar a una furia, una rabia y un fanatismo que anulan toda sensibilidad.
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This first translation of the complete poetry of Peruvian César Vallejo (1892-1938) makes available to English speakers one of the greatest achievements of twentieth-century world poetry. Handsomely presented in facing-page Spanish and English, this volume, translated by National Book Award winner Clayton Eshleman, includes the groundbreaking collections The Black Heralds (1918), Trilce (1922), Human Poems (1939), and Spain, Take This Cup from Me (1939).
Vallejo's poetry takes the Spanish language to an unprecedented level of emotional rawness and stretches its grammatical possibilities. Striking against theology with the very rhetoric of the Christian faith, Vallejo's is a tragic vision--perhaps the only one in the canon of Spanish-language literature--in which salvation and sin are one and the same. This edition includes notes on the translation and a fascinating translation memoir that traces Eshleman's long relationship with Vallejo's poetry. An introduction and chronology provide further insights into Vallejo's life and work.
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This comic novel by Mario Vargas Llosa, which merges reality with fantasy, is about the world of radio soap operas and the pitfalls of forbidden passion. Sophisticated, divorced Aunt Julia is looking for a new mate who can support her in a lavish lifestyle. Instead, she falls into an affair with her nephew, shocking her family and community. Description in Spanish: ''El genero novelesco no ha nacido para contar verdades, estas, al pasar a la ficcion, se vuelven siempre mentiras''. Ya en el titulo de esta novela de Mario Vargas Llosa, publicada en 1977, se recoge la doble historia en que se vertebra su argumento: por un lado, la relacion amorosa del joven escritor Varguitas con una mujer de su familia mayor que el, la tia Julia; y por otro, la desaforada presencia del folletinista Pedro Camacho en la misma emisora de radio donde Varguitas trabaja. La noble pasión amorosa entre la tia Julia y el aprendiz de novelista, que la sociedad limena de los anos cincuenta trata por todos los medios de impedir, se combina en esta novela de Vargas Llosa con las narraciones truculentas del folletinista de las ondas. El contrapunto de una encendida pasion con aires shakesperianos y su correlato melodramatico y la inesperada confluencia del devoto de la alta literatura y el escribidor rastrero son algunas claves de esta narracion mayor de Mario Vargas Llosa. La tia Julia y el escribidor reune el interes de los relatos de aventuras, donde la atencion del lector queda sujeta a un final feliz continuamente postergado, y el mas desternillante y grotesco pasatiempo, gracias sin duda a las divertidas aportaciones del escribidor Camacho, uno de los grandes personajes del novelista peruano.
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Mario Vargas Llosa's classic early novel takes place in a Peruvian town, situated between desert and jungle, which is torn by boredom and lust. Don Anselmo, a stranger in a black coat, builds a brothel on the outskirts of the town while he charms its innocent people, setting in motion a chain reaction with extraordinary consequences.
This brothel, called the Green House, brings together the innocent and the corrupt: Bonificia, a young Indian girl saved by the nuns only to become a prostitute; Father Garcia, struggling for the church; and four best friends drawn to both excitement and escape.
The conflicting forces that haunt the Green House evoke a world balanced between savagery and civilization -- and one that is cursed by not being able to discern between the two.
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An exemplary novel in the history of the boom in Latin American literature, La casa verde is a must for every reader who wants an in-depth knowledge of the narrative work of Mario Vargas Llosa. The novel takes place in two very distant points: Piura, in the desert of coastal Peru, and Santa Maria de Nieva, a factory/mission compound lost in the heart of the Amazonia. The symbol that locks the mystery of this story is the mythical pleasure house that Don Anselmo, the foreigner, erects in the outskirts of Piura. Description in Spanish: La casa verde transcurre en dos lugares muy alejados entre si: Piura, en el desierto del litoral peruano, y Santa Maria de Nieva, una factoria y mision religiosa perdida en el corazon de la Amazonia. Simbolo de la historia es la mitica casa de placer que don Anselmo, el forastero, erige en las afueras de Piura. Novela ejemplar en la historia del boom latinoamericano, La casa verde es una experiencia ineludible para todo aquel que quiera conocer en profundidad la obra narrativa de Mario Vargas Llosa.
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Mario Vargas Llosa condenses a lifetime of writing, reading, and thought into an essential manual for aspiring writers. Drawing on the stories and novels of writers from around the globe—Borges, Bierce, Céline, Cortázar, Faulkner, Kafka, Robbe-Grillet—he lays bare the inner workings of fiction, all the while urging young novelists not to lose touch with the elemental urge to create. Conversational, eloquent, and effortlessly erudite, this little book is destined to be read and re-read by young writers, old writers, would-be writers, and all those with a stake in the world of letters.
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This delightful 1973 satire later made into a motion picture, opens as the prim and proper Captain Pantoja learns he is to be sent to Peru's Amazon frontier on a secret mission for the army: to supply women for the amorous recruits. Sidesplitting complications arise as word of Captain Pantoja's remarkable achievements start to spread. This story underscores the hypocrisy of ''exemplary'' institutions, the eternal debate between need and virtue, truth and lies, and the sometimes-negative consequences of carrying out one's duty too thoroughly. Description in Spanish: Pantaleón Pantoja, un capitan del ejercito recientemente ascendido, recibe la mision de establecer un servicio de prostitucion para las Fuerzas Armadas del Peru en el mas absoluto secreto militar. Estricto cumplidor del deber que le ha sido asignado, Pantaleon se traslada a Iquitos, en plena selva, para llevar a cabo su cometido, pero se entrega a esta mision con tal obcecacion que termina por poner en peligro el engranaje que el mismo ha puesto en movimiento. Asi arranca esta novela, publicada en 1973 y llevada posteriormente al cine. Mario Vargas Llosa utiliza esta anecdota para subrayar la hipocresia de las instituciones que se llaman ejemplares y del oficio mas viejo del mundo. El eterno debate entre verdad y mentira, entre necesidad y virtud, y las perniciosas consecuencias que depara a veces la observancia rigurosa del deber son valores fundamentales de esta extraordinaria novela.
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A century passed between the birth of Flora Tristán and the death of her grandson, the great painter Paul Gauguin. They never met, but both dreamed, each in their own way, with a better world. With this novel we get to know these two great personalities that had similar characteristics: an impressive stubbornness and a bulletproof determination and motivation.Description in Spanish: Dos vidas: la de Flora Tristán, que pone todos sus esfuerzos en la lucha por los derechos de la mujer y de los obreros, y la de Paul Gauguin, el hombre que descubre su pasión por la pintura y abandona su existencia burguesa para viajar a Tahití en busca de un mundo sin contaminar por las convenciones. Dos concepciones del sexo: la de Flora, que sólo ve en él un instrumento de dominio masculino y la de Gauguin, que lo considera una fuerza vital imprescindible puesta al servicio de su creatividad. ¿Qué tienen en común esas dos vidas? Esto es lo que Vargas Llosa pone de relieve en esta novela: el mundo de utopías que fue el siglo XIX. Un nexo de unión entre dos personajes opuestos que desvelan un deseo común: el de alcanzar un paraíso donde sea posible la felicidad para los seres humanos.