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The Temptation of the Impossible: Victor Hugo and Les Miserables by Mario Vargas Llosa. Princeton. 2007. Princeton University Press. Translated From The Spanish By John King. 196 pages. 9780691131115.

DESCRIPTION - It was one of the most popular novels of the nineteenth century and Tolstoy called it 'the greatest of all novels. ' Yet today Victor Hugo's Les Miserables is neglected by readers and undervalued by critics. In The Temptation of the Impossible, one of the world's great novelists, Mario Vargas Llosa, helps us to appreciate the incredible ambition, power, and beauty of Hugo's masterpiece and, in the process, presents a humane vision of fiction as an alternative reality that can help us imagine a different and better world. Hugo, Vargas Llosa says, had at least two goals in Les Miserables--to create a complete fictional world and, through it, to change the real world. Despite the impossibility of these aims, Hugo makes them infectious, sweeping up the reader with his energy and linguistic and narrative skill. Les Miserables, Vargas Llosa argues, embodies a utopian vision of literature--the idea that literature can not only give us a supreme experience of beauty, but also make us more virtuous citizens, and even grant us a glimpse of the 'afterlife, the immortal soul, God. ' If Hugo's aspiration to transform individual and social life through literature now seems innocent, Vargas Llosa says, it is still a powerful ideal that great novels like Les Miserables can persuade us is true.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa (28 March 1936 – 13 April 2025), more commonly known as Mario Vargas Llosa, was a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist, and politician. Vargas Llosa was one of the most significant Latin American novelists and essayists and one of the leading writers of his generation. Some critics consider him to have had a more substantial international impact and worldwide audience than any other writer of the Latin American Boom. In 2010, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature for "his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat". Vargas Llosa rose to international fame in the 1960s with novels such as The Time of the Hero (La ciudad y los perros, 1963/1966), The Green House (La casa verde, 1965/1968), and the monumental Conversation in The Cathedral (Conversación en La Catedral, 1969/1975). He wrote prolifically across various literary genres, including literary criticism and journalism. His novels include comedies, murder mysteries, historical novels, and political thrillers. He won the 1967 Rómulo Gallegos Prize and the 1986 Prince of Asturias Award. Several of his works have been adopted as feature films, such as Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (1973/1978) and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977/1982). Vargas Llosa's perception of Peruvian society and his experiences as a native Peruvian influenced many of his works. Increasingly, he expanded his range and tackled themes from other parts of the world. In his essays, Vargas Llosa criticized nationalism in different parts of the world. Like many Latin American writers, Vargas Llosa was politically active. While he initially supported the Cuban revolutionary government of Fidel Castro, Vargas Llosa later became disenchanted with its policies, particularly after the imprisonment of Cuban poet Heberto Padilla in 1971, and later identified as a liberal and held anti–left-wing ideas. He ran for the presidency of Peru with the centre-right Democratic Front coalition in the 1990 election, advocating for liberal reforms, but lost the election to Alberto Fujimori in a landslide. Vargas Llosa continued his literary career while advocating for right-wing activists and candidates internationally following his exit from direct participation in Peruvian politics. He was awarded the 1994 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1995 Jerusalem Prize, the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature, the 2012 Carlos Fuentes Prize, and the 2018 Pablo Neruda Order of Artistic and Cultural Merit. In 2011, Vargas Llosa was made Marquess of Vargas Llosa by the Spanish king Juan Carlos I. In 2021, he was elected to the Académie Française.

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Captain Pantoja and the Special Service by Mario Vargas Llosa. New York. 1978. Harper & Row. Translated from the Spanish By Gregory Kolovakos & Ronald Christ. 244 pages. Cover art by Anita Lovitt. 0060144947. January 1978.

DESCRIPTION - Both a farce and a fable, CAPTAIN PANTOJA AND THE SPECIAL SERVICE marks a new direction in the literary development of Mario Vargas Llosa. Here, through a wonderfully comic montage of letters, military documents, radio broadcasts, dream sequences and dialogue, the author combines political satire with psychology, social criticism with humor, morality with uproarious sexuality. Pantaleon Pantoja, an Army captain who has been ordered to organize a special brigade of women to service the lonely troops in the jungle, meets with such success that he is forced to disband the very brigade he created. In the process, he nearly loses his wife and mother, while battling with religious zealots, a hypocritical radio announcer, the female ‘recruits’ and the Army that gave him the mission in the first place. The various elements of the story include arguments among the military officers over the morality of the brigade; a religious leader who wins thousands of converts by crucifying himself; a radio broadcaster who attempts to blackmail the Army; the private lives of the prostitutes themselves; and Captain Pantoja’s involvement with one of his ‘recruits. ’ VARGAS LLOSA brilliantly dissects social and moral clichés, popular culture, military jargon, religious fervor and blackmail-all of which he presents and satirizes simultaneously.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa (28 March 1936 – 13 April 2025), more commonly known as Mario Vargas Llosa, was a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist, and politician. Vargas Llosa was one of the most significant Latin American novelists and essayists and one of the leading writers of his generation. Some critics consider him to have had a more substantial international impact and worldwide audience than any other writer of the Latin American Boom. In 2010, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature for "his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat". Vargas Llosa rose to international fame in the 1960s with novels such as The Time of the Hero (La ciudad y los perros, 1963/1966), The Green House (La casa verde, 1965/1968), and the monumental Conversation in The Cathedral (Conversación en La Catedral, 1969/1975). He wrote prolifically across various literary genres, including literary criticism and journalism. His novels include comedies, murder mysteries, historical novels, and political thrillers. He won the 1967 Rómulo Gallegos Prize and the 1986 Prince of Asturias Award. Several of his works have been adopted as feature films, such as Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (1973/1978) and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977/1982). Vargas Llosa's perception of Peruvian society and his experiences as a native Peruvian influenced many of his works. Increasingly, he expanded his range and tackled themes from other parts of the world. In his essays, Vargas Llosa criticized nationalism in different parts of the world. Like many Latin American writers, Vargas Llosa was politically active. While he initially supported the Cuban revolutionary government of Fidel Castro, Vargas Llosa later became disenchanted with its policies, particularly after the imprisonment of Cuban poet Heberto Padilla in 1971, and later identified as a liberal and held anti–left-wing ideas. He ran for the presidency of Peru with the centre-right Democratic Front coalition in the 1990 election, advocating for liberal reforms, but lost the election to Alberto Fujimori in a landslide. Vargas Llosa continued his literary career while advocating for right-wing activists and candidates internationally following his exit from direct participation in Peruvian politics. He was awarded the 1994 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1995 Jerusalem Prize, the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature, the 2012 Carlos Fuentes Prize, and the 2018 Pablo Neruda Order of Artistic and Cultural Merit. In 2011, Vargas Llosa was made Marquess of Vargas Llosa by the Spanish king Juan Carlos I. In 2021, he was elected to the Académie Française.

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Wellsprings by Mario Vargas Llosa. Cambridge/London. 2008. Harvard University Press. The Richard Ellmann Lectures in Modern Literature. 202 pages. Jacket photograph - Alan Smith/Getty Images. Jacket design by Jill Breitbarth. 9780674028364.

DESCRIPTION - When a master novelist, essayist, and critic searches for the wellsprings of his own work, where does he turn? Mario Vargas Llosa—Peruvian writer, presidential contender, and public intellectual—answers this most personal question with elegant concision in this collection of essays. In ‘Four Centuries of Don Quixote,’ he revisits the quintessential Spanish novel—a fiction about fiction whose ebullient prose still questions the certainties of our stumbling ideals. In recounting his illicit, delicious discovery of Borges’ fiction—’the most important thing to happen to imaginative writing in the Spanish language in modern times’—Vargas Llosa stands in for a generation of Latin American novelists who were liberated from their sense of isolation and inferiority by this Argentinean master of the European tradition. In a nuanced appreciation of Ortega y Gasset, Vargas Llosa recovers the democratic liberalism of a misunderstood radical—a mid-century political philosopher on a par with Sartre and Russell, ignored because ‘he was only a Spaniard. ’ And in essays on the influence of Karl Popper and Isaiah Berlin, the author finds an antidote to the poisonous well of fanaticism in its many modern forms, from socialist utopianism and nationalism to religious fundamentalism. From these essays a picture emerges of a writer for whom the enchantment of literature awakens a critical gaze on the turbulent world in which we live.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa (28 March 1936 – 13 April 2025), more commonly known as Mario Vargas Llosa, was a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist, and politician. Vargas Llosa was one of the most significant Latin American novelists and essayists and one of the leading writers of his generation. Some critics consider him to have had a more substantial international impact and worldwide audience than any other writer of the Latin American Boom. In 2010, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature for "his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat". Vargas Llosa rose to international fame in the 1960s with novels such as The Time of the Hero (La ciudad y los perros, 1963/1966), The Green House (La casa verde, 1965/1968), and the monumental Conversation in The Cathedral (Conversación en La Catedral, 1969/1975). He wrote prolifically across various literary genres, including literary criticism and journalism. His novels include comedies, murder mysteries, historical novels, and political thrillers. He won the 1967 Rómulo Gallegos Prize and the 1986 Prince of Asturias Award. Several of his works have been adopted as feature films, such as Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (1973/1978) and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977/1982). Vargas Llosa's perception of Peruvian society and his experiences as a native Peruvian influenced many of his works. Increasingly, he expanded his range and tackled themes from other parts of the world. In his essays, Vargas Llosa criticized nationalism in different parts of the world. Like many Latin American writers, Vargas Llosa was politically active. While he initially supported the Cuban revolutionary government of Fidel Castro, Vargas Llosa later became disenchanted with its policies, particularly after the imprisonment of Cuban poet Heberto Padilla in 1971, and later identified as a liberal and held anti–left-wing ideas. He ran for the presidency of Peru with the centre-right Democratic Front coalition in the 1990 election, advocating for liberal reforms, but lost the election to Alberto Fujimori in a landslide. Vargas Llosa continued his literary career while advocating for right-wing activists and candidates internationally following his exit from direct participation in Peruvian politics. He was awarded the 1994 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1995 Jerusalem Prize, the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature, the 2012 Carlos Fuentes Prize, and the 2018 Pablo Neruda Order of Artistic and Cultural Merit. In 2011, Vargas Llosa was made Marquess of Vargas Llosa by the Spanish king Juan Carlos I. In 2021, he was elected to the Académie Française.

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A Fish inn the Water: A Memoir by Mario Vargas Llosa. New York. 1994. Farrar Straus Giroux. Translated From The Spanish By Helen Lane. 532 pages. Jacket design by Michael Ian Kaye. Jacket photographs by Melissa Hayden. Author photograph 1993 by Jerry Bauer. 0374155097.

DESCRIPTION - In 1990, Mario Vargas Llosa decided to run for the presidency of his native Peru, campaigning on a platform of economic reform and stringent counterterrorism against the Sendero Luminoso, or Shining Path. His campaign against Alberto Fujimori was the stuff of international headlines, transforming an eminent writer into a politician of world stature. A Fish in the Water is Vargas Llosa’s disarming and deeply absorbing response to that profoundly heady - and troubling - experience. This is a twofold book: a memoir of the formation of one of Latin America’s most celebrated artists, from his birth in Arequipa in 1936 to his departure for Europe to make his career as a writer; and, in alternating chapters, the story of Vargas Llosa’s organization of the reform movement which culminated in his bid for the presidency. In this richly personal work, Vargas Llosa evokes the experiences which gave rise to his fiction, including his stay at the Leoncio Prado Military Academy, which was the basis of his first book, THE TIME OF THE HERO, and his desperate attempts to marry while still a minor, as recounted in hilarious detail in AUNT JULIA AND THE SCRIPTWRITER. In parallel, he describes the social, literary, and political influences that led him to enter the political arena as a crusader for modern de- mocracy and a free-market economy. Offering an unexpectedly intimate look at how fact becomes fiction and at the formation of a courageous and original politician and thinker, A FISH IN THE WATER reveals Mario Vargas Llosa as a world figure whose real story is just beginning. Mario Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian writer who is one of Latin America’s leading novelists and essayists.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa (28 March 1936 – 13 April 2025), more commonly known as Mario Vargas Llosa, was a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist, and politician. Vargas Llosa was one of the most significant Latin American novelists and essayists and one of the leading writers of his generation. Some critics consider him to have had a more substantial international impact and worldwide audience than any other writer of the Latin American Boom. In 2010, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature for "his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat". Vargas Llosa rose to international fame in the 1960s with novels such as The Time of the Hero (La ciudad y los perros, 1963/1966), The Green House (La casa verde, 1965/1968), and the monumental Conversation in The Cathedral (Conversación en La Catedral, 1969/1975). He wrote prolifically across various literary genres, including literary criticism and journalism. His novels include comedies, murder mysteries, historical novels, and political thrillers. He won the 1967 Rómulo Gallegos Prize and the 1986 Prince of Asturias Award. Several of his works have been adopted as feature films, such as Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (1973/1978) and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977/1982). Vargas Llosa's perception of Peruvian society and his experiences as a native Peruvian influenced many of his works. Increasingly, he expanded his range and tackled themes from other parts of the world. In his essays, Vargas Llosa criticized nationalism in different parts of the world. Like many Latin American writers, Vargas Llosa was politically active. While he initially supported the Cuban revolutionary government of Fidel Castro, Vargas Llosa later became disenchanted with its policies, particularly after the imprisonment of Cuban poet Heberto Padilla in 1971, and later identified as a liberal and held anti–left-wing ideas. He ran for the presidency of Peru with the centre-right Democratic Front coalition in the 1990 election, advocating for liberal reforms, but lost the election to Alberto Fujimori in a landslide. Vargas Llosa continued his literary career while advocating for right-wing activists and candidates internationally following his exit from direct participation in Peruvian politics. He was awarded the 1994 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1995 Jerusalem Prize, the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature, the 2012 Carlos Fuentes Prize, and the 2018 Pablo Neruda Order of Artistic and Cultural Merit. In 2011, Vargas Llosa was made Marquess of Vargas Llosa by the Spanish king Juan Carlos I. In 2021, he was elected to the Académie Française.

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The Storyteller by Mario Vargas Llosa. New York. 1989. Farrar Straus Giroux. Translated from the Spanish by Helen Lane. 247 pages. Jacket art by Mark Sturgeon. Jacket design by Cynthia Krupat. 0374270856. November 1989. Originally published in Spanish as El Hablador by Seix Barral Biblioteca Breve.

DESCRIPTION - In a small gallery in Florence, a world-weary Peruvian happens upon an exhibition of photographs from the Amazon jungle. One of these pictures shows a tribal storyteller seated in the middle of a circle of Machiguenga Indians. The Machiguengas, until a few years before, had been completely isolated from civilization, so it is astonishing that these photographs exist at all. Even more curious is the fact that there is something particularly odd about the physical appearance of the storyteller. The man in the photo is horribly disfigured and seems far too light-skinned to be an Indian. As the visitor to the gallery stares at the photograph, he is overcome by the eerie sense that he knows this man. The resemblance to his old friend Saul Zuratas is uncanny. Zuratas, known to all as Mascarita-Mask Face-because of a terrible scar, has not been seen in years and is thought to have disappeared in Israel. Could it be, the Peruvian narrator begins to wonder, that the storyteller is not an Indian at all but the long-lost Mascarita? So begins Mario Vargas Llosa’s magisterial new novel, THE STORYTELLER. The book follows the destiny of the Peruvian Jew Saul Zuratas-an outsider by ethnicity and by appearance-and imagines his transformation from a conscience-stricken modern man obsessed with the survival of the pre-modern peoples of the Amazon into a member of the Machiguenga tribe; indeed, their chronicler, their voice. Part Dostoevsky’s Prince Myshkin, part a character out of Kafka, Saul is one of the most moving and extraordinary people Vargas Llosa has ever created, an incarnation of conscience in a consciousless time. Always an able cartographer of the modern, in THE STORYTELLER Vargas Llosa depicts a world we have lost, the world of our origins.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa (28 March 1936 – 13 April 2025), more commonly known as Mario Vargas Llosa, was a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist, and politician. Vargas Llosa was one of the most significant Latin American novelists and essayists and one of the leading writers of his generation. Some critics consider him to have had a more substantial international impact and worldwide audience than any other writer of the Latin American Boom. In 2010, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature for "his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat". Vargas Llosa rose to international fame in the 1960s with novels such as The Time of the Hero (La ciudad y los perros, 1963/1966), The Green House (La casa verde, 1965/1968), and the monumental Conversation in The Cathedral (Conversación en La Catedral, 1969/1975). He wrote prolifically across various literary genres, including literary criticism and journalism. His novels include comedies, murder mysteries, historical novels, and political thrillers. He won the 1967 Rómulo Gallegos Prize and the 1986 Prince of Asturias Award. Several of his works have been adopted as feature films, such as Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (1973/1978) and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977/1982). Vargas Llosa's perception of Peruvian society and his experiences as a native Peruvian influenced many of his works. Increasingly, he expanded his range and tackled themes from other parts of the world. In his essays, Vargas Llosa criticized nationalism in different parts of the world. Like many Latin American writers, Vargas Llosa was politically active. While he initially supported the Cuban revolutionary government of Fidel Castro, Vargas Llosa later became disenchanted with its policies, particularly after the imprisonment of Cuban poet Heberto Padilla in 1971, and later identified as a liberal and held anti–left-wing ideas. He ran for the presidency of Peru with the centre-right Democratic Front coalition in the 1990 election, advocating for liberal reforms, but lost the election to Alberto Fujimori in a landslide. Vargas Llosa continued his literary career while advocating for right-wing activists and candidates internationally following his exit from direct participation in Peruvian politics. He was awarded the 1994 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1995 Jerusalem Prize, the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature, the 2012 Carlos Fuentes Prize, and the 2018 Pablo Neruda Order of Artistic and Cultural Merit. In 2011, Vargas Llosa was made Marquess of Vargas Llosa by the Spanish king Juan Carlos I. In 2021, he was elected to the Académie Française.

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Conversation in the Cathedral by Mario Vargas Llosa. New York. 1975. Harper & Row. 0060145021. Translated from the Spanish by Gregory Rabassa. 601 pages. hardcover. Jacket photo by Cesar Malet.

  
DESCRIPTION - A powerful novel of political and personal greed, corruption, and terror set in modem Peru, by the author of The Green House and THE TIME OF THE HERO. Under the rule of the unseen military dictator General Odria. suspicion, paranoia, and blackmail become the realities of public and private life. Lust and violence are commodities for the rich and powerful, and for the people there is anonymity or recognition, real or imagined, as enemies of the public order. Through the doors of The Cathedral, a bar and brothel in Lima, come the participants - escapees, and ordinary citizens of a city caught in a web of rottenness and fear. For Santiago Zavala, journalist and son of a rich and famous politician, and the former chauffeur Ambrosio, a chance meeting begins a narrative of events that encompasses their lives and those of many others. Full of vivid scenes and characters, this is an extraordinary panorama of city life during a dictator's regime and the story of its incipient decay and breakdown. Conversation in The Cathedral is a frightening and impressive portrait of political evil by a leading contemporary Latin American novelist. Written on many levels and brilliantly translated by Gregory Rabassa, it appropriately takes its epigraph from Balzac ‘the novel is the private history of nations.'

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa (28 March 1936 – 13 April 2025), more commonly known as Mario Vargas Llosa, was a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist, and politician. Vargas Llosa was one of the most significant Latin American novelists and essayists and one of the leading writers of his generation. Some critics consider him to have had a more substantial international impact and worldwide audience than any other writer of the Latin American Boom. In 2010, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature for "his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat". Vargas Llosa rose to international fame in the 1960s with novels such as The Time of the Hero (La ciudad y los perros, 1963/1966), The Green House (La casa verde, 1965/1968), and the monumental Conversation in The Cathedral (Conversación en La Catedral, 1969/1975). He wrote prolifically across various literary genres, including literary criticism and journalism. His novels include comedies, murder mysteries, historical novels, and political thrillers. He won the 1967 Rómulo Gallegos Prize and the 1986 Prince of Asturias Award. Several of his works have been adopted as feature films, such as Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (1973/1978) and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977/1982). Vargas Llosa's perception of Peruvian society and his experiences as a native Peruvian influenced many of his works. Increasingly, he expanded his range and tackled themes from other parts of the world. In his essays, Vargas Llosa criticized nationalism in different parts of the world. Like many Latin American writers, Vargas Llosa was politically active. While he initially supported the Cuban revolutionary government of Fidel Castro, Vargas Llosa later became disenchanted with its policies, particularly after the imprisonment of Cuban poet Heberto Padilla in 1971, and later identified as a liberal and held anti–left-wing ideas. He ran for the presidency of Peru with the centre-right Democratic Front coalition in the 1990 election, advocating for liberal reforms, but lost the election to Alberto Fujimori in a landslide. Vargas Llosa continued his literary career while advocating for right-wing activists and candidates internationally following his exit from direct participation in Peruvian politics. He was awarded the 1994 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1995 Jerusalem Prize, the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature, the 2012 Carlos Fuentes Prize, and the 2018 Pablo Neruda Order of Artistic and Cultural Merit. In 2011, Vargas Llosa was made Marquess of Vargas Llosa by the Spanish king Juan Carlos I. In 2021, he was elected to the Académie Française.

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The Dream of the Celt: A Novel by Mario Vargas Llosa. New York. 2012. Farrar Straus Giroux. hardcover. 358 pages. Jacket design by Eric Fuentecilla. Jacket art: (front) Portait of Sir Roger Casement courtesy of Joseph McGarrity Collection; Map deatil by Tetra Images; (back) Istockphoto.com/Arne Thaysen. Translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman. 9780374143466.

DESCRIPTION - A subtle and enlightening novel about a neglected human rights pioneer by the Nobel Laureate Mario Vargas Llosa. In 1916, the Irish nationalist Roger Casement was hanged by the British government for treason. Casement had dedicated his extraordinary life to improving the plight of oppressed peoples around the world—especially the native populations in the Belgian Congo and the Amazon—but when he dared to draw a parallel between the injustices he witnessed in African and American colonies and those committed by the British in Northern Ireland, he became involved in a cause that led to his imprisonment and execution. Ultimately, the scandals surrounding Casement’s trial and eventual hanging tainted his image to such a degree that his pioneering human rights work wasn’t fully reexamined until the 1960s. In The Dream of the Celt, Mario Vargas Llosa, who has long been regarded as one of Latin America’s most vibrant, provocative, and necessary literary voices - a fact confirmed when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010 - brings this complex character to life as no other writer can. A masterful work, sharply translated by Edith Grossman, The Dream of the Celt tackles a controversial man whose story has long been neglected, and, in so doing, pushes at the boundaries of the historical novel.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa (28 March 1936 – 13 April 2025), more commonly known as Mario Vargas Llosa, was a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist, and politician. Vargas Llosa was one of the most significant Latin American novelists and essayists and one of the leading writers of his generation. Some critics consider him to have had a more substantial international impact and worldwide audience than any other writer of the Latin American Boom. In 2010, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature for "his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat". Vargas Llosa rose to international fame in the 1960s with novels such as The Time of the Hero (La ciudad y los perros, 1963/1966), The Green House (La casa verde, 1965/1968), and the monumental Conversation in The Cathedral (Conversación en La Catedral, 1969/1975). He wrote prolifically across various literary genres, including literary criticism and journalism. His novels include comedies, murder mysteries, historical novels, and political thrillers. He won the 1967 Rómulo Gallegos Prize and the 1986 Prince of Asturias Award. Several of his works have been adopted as feature films, such as Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (1973/1978) and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977/1982). Vargas Llosa's perception of Peruvian society and his experiences as a native Peruvian influenced many of his works. Increasingly, he expanded his range and tackled themes from other parts of the world. In his essays, Vargas Llosa criticized nationalism in different parts of the world. Like many Latin American writers, Vargas Llosa was politically active. While he initially supported the Cuban revolutionary government of Fidel Castro, Vargas Llosa later became disenchanted with its policies, particularly after the imprisonment of Cuban poet Heberto Padilla in 1971, and later identified as a liberal and held anti–left-wing ideas. He ran for the presidency of Peru with the centre-right Democratic Front coalition in the 1990 election, advocating for liberal reforms, but lost the election to Alberto Fujimori in a landslide. Vargas Llosa continued his literary career while advocating for right-wing activists and candidates internationally following his exit from direct participation in Peruvian politics. He was awarded the 1994 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1995 Jerusalem Prize, the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature, the 2012 Carlos Fuentes Prize, and the 2018 Pablo Neruda Order of Artistic and Cultural Merit. In 2011, Vargas Llosa was made Marquess of Vargas Llosa by the Spanish king Juan Carlos I. In 2021, he was elected to the Académie Française.

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The Discreet Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa. New York. 2015. Farrar Straus Giroux. Translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman. 326 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Alex Merto. 9780374146740.

DESCRIPTION - The latest masterpiece--perceptive, funny, insightful, affecting--from the Nobel Prize-winning author Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa's newest novel, "The Discreet Hero," follows two fascinating characters whose lives are destined to intersect: neat, endearing Felicito Yanaque, a small businessman in Piura, Peru, who finds himself the victim of blackmail; and Ismael Carrera, a successful owner of an insurance company in Lima, who cooks up a plan to avenge himself against the two lazy sons who want him dead. Felicito and Ismael are, each in his own way, quiet, discreet rebels: honorable men trying to seize control of their destinies in a social and political climate where all can seem set in stone, predetermined. They are hardly vigilantes, but each is determined to live according to his own personal ideals and desires--which means forcibly rising above the pettiness of their surroundings. "The Discreet Hero" is also a chance to revisit some of our favorite players from previous Vargas Llosa novels: Sergeant Lituma, Don Rigoberto, Dona Lucrecia, and Fonchito are all here in a prosperous Peru. Vargas Llosa sketches Piura and Lima vividly--and the cities become not merely physical spaces but realms of the imagination populated by his vivid characters. A novel whose humor and pathos shine through in Edith Grossman's masterly translation, "The Discreet Hero" is another remarkable achievement from the finest Latin American novelist at work today."

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa (28 March 1936 – 13 April 2025), more commonly known as Mario Vargas Llosa, was a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist, and politician. Vargas Llosa was one of the most significant Latin American novelists and essayists and one of the leading writers of his generation. Some critics consider him to have had a more substantial international impact and worldwide audience than any other writer of the Latin American Boom. In 2010, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature for "his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat". Vargas Llosa rose to international fame in the 1960s with novels such as The Time of the Hero (La ciudad y los perros, 1963/1966), The Green House (La casa verde, 1965/1968), and the monumental Conversation in The Cathedral (Conversación en La Catedral, 1969/1975). He wrote prolifically across various literary genres, including literary criticism and journalism. His novels include comedies, murder mysteries, historical novels, and political thrillers. He won the 1967 Rómulo Gallegos Prize and the 1986 Prince of Asturias Award. Several of his works have been adopted as feature films, such as Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (1973/1978) and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977/1982). Vargas Llosa's perception of Peruvian society and his experiences as a native Peruvian influenced many of his works. Increasingly, he expanded his range and tackled themes from other parts of the world. In his essays, Vargas Llosa criticized nationalism in different parts of the world. Like many Latin American writers, Vargas Llosa was politically active. While he initially supported the Cuban revolutionary government of Fidel Castro, Vargas Llosa later became disenchanted with its policies, particularly after the imprisonment of Cuban poet Heberto Padilla in 1971, and later identified as a liberal and held anti–left-wing ideas. He ran for the presidency of Peru with the centre-right Democratic Front coalition in the 1990 election, advocating for liberal reforms, but lost the election to Alberto Fujimori in a landslide. Vargas Llosa continued his literary career while advocating for right-wing activists and candidates internationally following his exit from direct participation in Peruvian politics. He was awarded the 1994 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1995 Jerusalem Prize, the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature, the 2012 Carlos Fuentes Prize, and the 2018 Pablo Neruda Order of Artistic and Cultural Merit. In 2011, Vargas Llosa was made Marquess of Vargas Llosa by the Spanish king Juan Carlos I. In 2021, he was elected to the Académie Française.

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Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa. New York. 1982. Farrar Straus Giroux. 0374106916. Translated from the Spanish by Helen R. Lane. 374 pages. hardcover. Jacket design (c) 1982 by Tom Christopher. Jacket photograph (c) 1982 by Alicia Benavides.

DESCRIPTION - Mario Vargas Llosa has long been acknowledged as one of Latin America’s most important writers. A novelist of wide-ranging concerns, Vargas Llosa has, with AUNT JULIA AND THE SCRIPTWRITER, written his comic masterpiece-a ribald, sophisticated tale of life and love in Lima of the 1950s. In AUNT JULIA AND THE SCRIPTWRITER he tells, in fact, two stories which unfold contrapuntally. On one level, the book concerns young Mario, who, while working at a second-rate Lima radio station, becomes romantically involved with Julia, his divorced, thirty-two-year-old aunt. The development of their liaison-from fling to romance to marriage-and the scandal it creates is the keenly observed, witty main plot. Interwoven with this love affair is the tale of Pedro Camacho, Mario’s friend at the radio station, and the resident scriptwriter of outlandish soap operas which are the hit of Lima. This second story is equally funny, but the humor is darker and the conclusion serious indeed. Camacho’s plots become more and more convoluted, and his absorption in them so total that soon he dresses like his characters in order to write, and finally confuses them so completely that he must destroy them all. His Gothic tales of ruin become a parable of his own rum. AUNT JULIA AND THE SCRIPTWRITER is a wonderful, deft story which is also an account of storytelling-its pleasures and its dangers. Combining grace, humor, and an understated seriousness, the book is a brilliantly realized tour de force.

The Avon Bard edition:

Vargas Llosa, Mario. Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. New York. 1983. Avon/Bard. 0380637278. Translated from the Spanish by Helen R. Lane. 374 pages. paperback. Front cover illustration by Victor Gadino.

  
FROM THE PUBLISHER -

‘FUNNY, EXTRAVAGANT . . . A WONDERFULLY COMIC NOVEL ALMOST UNBELIEVABLY RICH IN CHARACTER, PLACE AND EVENT.’ - LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK REVIEW . . . ‘Me, seducing a kid? Never!’ Rich, sexy Aunt Julia wants a new husband, not a boy. But her nephew lost his virginity five whole years ago, and has now lost his head over Aunt Julia. Roses, kissing, cooing . . . will this May-September scandal ever get down to serious improprieties? Can the nephew hope for help from his hero, a crack scriptwriter of superheated soaps? While legions of soap addicts hang on the scriptwriter’s frenzied episodes of incest, murder, rape and perversion, the lovers’ happiness hangs in the balance. ‘WILL READERS TURN THE PAGES TO FIND OUT WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT? YES: ’ - PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER ‘UPROARIOUS ENTERTAINMENT . . . FOR SHEER WIT, IMAGINATION AND HIGH STYLE, THIS SOAP OPERA OF LOVE CANT BE BEAT: ’ - CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR . . . ‘ONE OF THE TWELVE ‘BEST NOVELS OF 1982’ – THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa (28 March 1936 – 13 April 2025), more commonly known as Mario Vargas Llosa, was a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist, and politician. Vargas Llosa was one of the most significant Latin American novelists and essayists and one of the leading writers of his generation. Some critics consider him to have had a more substantial international impact and worldwide audience than any other writer of the Latin American Boom. In 2010, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature for "his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat". Vargas Llosa rose to international fame in the 1960s with novels such as The Time of the Hero (La ciudad y los perros, 1963/1966), The Green House (La casa verde, 1965/1968), and the monumental Conversation in The Cathedral (Conversación en La Catedral, 1969/1975). He wrote prolifically across various literary genres, including literary criticism and journalism. His novels include comedies, murder mysteries, historical novels, and political thrillers. He won the 1967 Rómulo Gallegos Prize and the 1986 Prince of Asturias Award. Several of his works have been adopted as feature films, such as Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (1973/1978) and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (1977/1982). Vargas Llosa's perception of Peruvian society and his experiences as a native Peruvian influenced many of his works. Increasingly, he expanded his range and tackled themes from other parts of the world. In his essays, Vargas Llosa criticized nationalism in different parts of the world. Like many Latin American writers, Vargas Llosa was politically active. While he initially supported the Cuban revolutionary government of Fidel Castro, Vargas Llosa later became disenchanted with its policies, particularly after the imprisonment of Cuban poet Heberto Padilla in 1971, and later identified as a liberal and held anti–left-wing ideas. He ran for the presidency of Peru with the centre-right Democratic Front coalition in the 1990 election, advocating for liberal reforms, but lost the election to Alberto Fujimori in a landslide. Vargas Llosa continued his literary career while advocating for right-wing activists and candidates internationally following his exit from direct participation in Peruvian politics. He was awarded the 1994 Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the 1995 Jerusalem Prize, the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature, the 2012 Carlos Fuentes Prize, and the 2018 Pablo Neruda Order of Artistic and Cultural Merit. In 2011, Vargas Llosa was made Marquess of Vargas Llosa by the Spanish king Juan Carlos I. In 2021, he was elected to the Académie Française.

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And for a slightly different perspective:

Urquidi Illanes, Julia. My Life With Mario Vargas Llosa . New York. 1988. Peter Lang. 0820406899. Translated from the Spanish by C. R. Perricone. Series XXII Latin American Studies Vol.1. 264 pages. hardcover.  

FROM THE PUBLISHER -

Living in a Paris garret with a struggling young writer who has since become a famous author was not fictional for Julia Urquidi Illanes when she married Mario Vargas Llosa. This English translation is an incredible but true 'portrait of an artist as a young man' and of his aunt by marriage, whom he later fictionalized in Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. Married for 9 years, Julia typed the first of his best-selling novels, The Time of the Hero, only to be abandoned when Mario fell in love with his first cousin Patricia, who is now his second wife. Readers will find this behind the scene account of a writer nominated for the Nobel prize gives insights into the creative processes of a novelist as it relates the range of human emotions in real life. 

Julia Urquidi Illanes (30 May 1926 - 10 March 2010) was a Bolivian writer. Urquidi was born in Cochabamba. She was famous as the first wife of Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa (1955-1964) and also the namesake of one of his most famous novels, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. In 1983 she published her memories titled Lo que Varguitas no dijo (English: What Varguitas did not say). She died in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, aged 83.The English translator Catherine R. Perricone is Professor of Foreign Languages at Auburn University specializing in current Spanish American literature. She edited Alma y Corazon (Heart and Soul) an anthology of Latin American poetesses, and has published articles on Vargas Llosa and other novelists, an extensive bibliography on feminist criticism and Spanish American poetesses, and other subjects in Hispanic literature which have appeared in such journals as Hispania, Foreign Language Annals, Circulo, USF Language Quarterly, and The Americas Review.

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Rebellion in the Backlands by Euclides da Cunha. Chicago. 1944. University of Chicago Press. Translated from the Portuguese & With An Introduction and Notes by Samuel Putnam. 526 pages. hardcover.  

DESCRIPTION - One of the strangest stories ever found in a little-known corner of history, this is a human and military account of a war waged between a ragged religious mystic and the government of Brazil. It was a peculiarly personal war that had much in common with old-time Kentucky feuds and uprisings on the American frontier and it ended only when 5,200 houses and every man, woman, and child who had lived in them had been totally destroyed! This is the story of Antonio Conselheiro, the fanatic street preacher-Messiah to thousands-who led the rebellion in a primitive backwoods community of desert and mountains from December, 1896, to October, 1897. Mr. Putnam, in his excellent Introduction, reminds us that it required three months for a federal army of some 6,000 men to advance 100 yards against a handful of backwoodsmen. ‘Here is guerrilla warfare in its pristine form,' he says, ‘with the ‘scorched earth' and all the other accompaniments . . . a months-long house-to-house battle that recalls the contemporary epic of Stalingrad.' Universally known as Brazil's greatest book, Os Sertoes is now in its sixteenth Brazilian edition and has been translated into several foreign languages. ‘Os Sertoes is a Genesis which in epic accents tells of the meeting of civilization and barbarism,' says Afrânio Peixoto . . . . It is a book that represents a moment in the history of humanity; and, thanks to its style, its art, and its science, that ephemeral moment is destined to be eternal.' Carleton Beals calls it ‘that great document, which, though not a novel, reads like fiction.' Stefan Zweig, in BRAZIL, LAND OF THE FUTURE, calls it a ‘great national epic . destined to outlive countless books that are famous today, by its dramatic significance, its spectacular wealth of spiritual wisdom, and the wonderful humanitarian touch Cunha himself called his book ‘a cry of protest' against what he regarded as - a crime and an act of madness on the part of the newly formed republican government of Brazil. Os Sertöes is a document against oppression of the weak by the strong-in current language, against totalitarianism. Cunha has been called a ‘son of the soil, madly in love with it,' but be was also a scientist, a military engineer by profession, a sociologist, a reporter, and a man of letters. In the first two chapters of his book he describes with precision and passion the geographic and geologic composition of the backlands, its botany, climate, and soil, all, however, as interpretation of the mestizo backwoodsman and his way of life. Cunha's hook was originally published in Rio in 1902. It bad an immediate and terrific impact upon Brazil-indeed, so much so that Cunha's assassination in 1909 by a soldier was said to be in retaliation for the exposures of the army in Os Sertöes and in fear of another book which Cunha was writing at the time of his death. This, the first translation of Os Sertöes into English, because of its importance to better understanding between South and North America, has had aid in publication from the Office of the Co-ordinator of Inter-American Affairs. REBELLION IN THE BACKLANDS is Mr. Putnam's twenty-fifth full-length published book translation. He has made available to American readers many of the great books from the French, Italian, and Portuguese.

And in a more recent transltion from Penguin Classics:

Backlands: The Canudos Campaign by Euclides da Cunha. New York. 2010. Penguin Books. 9780143106074. Translated from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Lowe. Introduction by Ilan Stavans. 513 pages. paperback. Cover art: Elsa Chiao.  

DESCRIPTION - Written by a former army lieutenant, civil engineer, and journalist, Backlands: The Canudos Campaign, is Euclides da Cunha's vivid and poignant portrayal of Brazil's infamous War of Canudos. deadliest civil war in Brazilian history, the conflict during the 1890s was between the government and the village of Canudos, in the northeastern state of Bahia, settled by 30,000 followers of the religious zealot Antonio Conselheiro. Far from just an objective retelling, da Cunha's story shows both the significance of this event and the complexities of Brazilian society. Featuring a new translation by Elizabeth Lowe, and an introduction by Ilan Stavans, one of Latin America's foremost scholars, this is sure to remain one of the best chronicles of war ever penned.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Euclides da Cunha (January 20, 1866 - August 15, 1909) was a Brazilian journalist, sociologist and engineer. His most important work is Os Sertões (Rebellion in the Backlands), a non-fictional account of the military expeditions promoted by the Brazilian government against the rebellious village of Canudos, known as the War of Canudos. This book was a favorite of Robert Lowell, who put it above Tolstoy, the Russian writer. Jorge Luis Borges also commented on it in his short story ‘Three Versions of Judas‘. The book was translated into English by Samuel Putnam and published by the University of Chicago Press in 1944. It remains in print. Euclides da Cunha was also heavily influenced by Naturalism and its Darwinian proponents. Os Sertões characterised the coast of Brazil as a chain of civilisations while the interior was more primitively influenced. Euclides da Cunha was the basis for the character of The Journalist in Mario Vargas Llosa's The War of the End of the World. Euclides da Cunha occupied the 7th chair of the Brazilian Academy of Letters from 1903 until his death in 1909.

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