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2.
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Haunted all her life by feelings of terror and emptiness, 49-year-old Urania Cabral returns to her native Dominican Republicand finds herself reliving the events of 1961, when the capital was still called Trujillo City and one old man terrorized a nation of three million. Rafael Trujillo, the depraved ailing dictator whom Dominicans call the Goat, controls his inner circle with a combination of violence and blackmail. In Trujillos gaudy palace, treachery and cowardice have become a way of life. But Trujillos grasp is slipping. There is a conspiracy against him, and a Machiavellian revolution already underway that will have bloody consequences of its own. In this masterpiece of Latin American and world literature, and one of the finest political novels ever written (Bookforum), Mario Vargas Llosa recounts the end of a regime and the birth of a terrible democracy, giving voice to the historical Trujillo and the victims, both innocent and complicit, drawn into his deadly orbit....
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Ricardo Somocurcio is in love with a bad girl. He loves her as a teenager known as “Lily” in Lima in 1950, when she arrives one summer out of the blue, claiming to be from Chile but vanishing the moment her claim is exposed as fiction. He loves her next in Paris, where she appears as the enchanting “Comrade Arlette,” an activist en route to Cuba, and becomes his lover, albeit n icy, remote one who denies knowing anything about the ily of years gone by. Whoever the bad girl turns up as—whether t’s Madame Robert Arnoux, the wife of a high-ranking UNESCO fficial, or Kuriko, the mistress of a sinister Japanese businessman—and however poorly she treats him, Ricardo is doomed to worship her.
The protean Lily, gifted liar and irresistible, maddening muse—does Ricardo ever know who she really is? The answer is as unclear s what has become of Ricardo himself, a lifelong expatriate hadowed by the sense that he is only ever drifting. In MarioVargas Llosa’s beguiling new novel, the strange bedfellows of good and bad turn out not to be what they appear. ...
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Set in Lima, Peru this is the story of a bizarre love triangle whose participants may be the creations of Don Rigoberto's fertile imagination. The central characters are Rigoberto himself, a dull insurance executive by day, a pornogapher and sexual enthusiast by night; Lucrecia, his second wife; and Alfonso, his angel-faced young son. Husband and wife have been separated for a year because of a sexual encounter between the boy and his stepmother. Rigoberto misses Lucrecia desperately--filling notebooks with his memories, fantasies, and letters he will never send. Meanwhile, Alfonso visits Lucrecia, attempting to both win her love and reunite her with his father. A companion volume to In Praise of the Stepmother--where we were first introduced to these passionate characters--The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto is a compelling mix of fantasy and reality that always keep the reader guessing. ...
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9.
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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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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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11.
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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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14.
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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: Cual es el verdadero rostro del amor? Ricardo ve cumplido, a una edad muy temprana, el sueno que en su Lima natal alimento desde que tenia uso de razon: vivir en Paris. Pero el reencuentro con un amor de adolescencia lo cambiara todo. La joven, inconformista, aventurera, pragmatica e inquieta, lo arrastrara fuera del pequeno mundo de sus ambiciones. Testigos de epocas convulsas y florecientes en ciudades como Londres, Paris, Tokio o Madrid, ambos personajes veran sus vidas entrelazarse sin llegar a coincidir del todo. Entre lo comico y lo tragico, la realidad y la ficcion, Travesuras de la nina mala logra retratar al amor indefinible, dueno de mil caras, como la nina mala. Pasion y distancia, azar y destino, dolor y disfrute....
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At a small gallery in Florence, a Peruvian writer happens upon a photograph of a tribal storyteller deep in the jungles of the Amazon. He is overcome with the eerie sense that he knows this man...that the storyteller is not an Indian at all but an old school friend, Saul Zuratas. As recollections of Zuratas flow through his mind, the writer begins to imagine Zuratas's transformation from a modern to a central member of the unacculturated Machiguenga tribe. Weaving the mysteries of identity, storytelling, and truth, Vargas Llosa has created a spellbinding tale of one man's journey from the modern world to our origins, abandoning one in order to find meaning in both.
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19.
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In this brilliant essay, Vargas Llosa examines Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert, who is considered the founder of the modern novel and an indisputable influence on future novelists. The first part of this book is autobiographical in tone; the second comprises an exhaustive analysis on the structure and significance of Madame Bovary, the third traces the relation between Flaubert s work with the history and growth of modern literature s most representative genre the novel. Description In Spanish: «HacÃa años que ninguna novela vampirizaba tan rápidamente mi atención, abolÃa asà el contorno fÃsico y me sumergÃa tan hondo en su materia.» Mario Vargas Llosa En este brillante ensayo, Mario Vargas Llosa analiza una de las novelas que han marcado su carrera como escritor: Madame Bovary, de Gustave Flaubert, considerado el fundador de la novela moderna y uno de los maestros indiscutibles de todos los narradores posteriores. La pesquisa del narrador peruano tantea tres diferentes vÃas de aproximación al texto flaubertiano: en una primera parte, de tono autobiográfico, Vargas Llosa se retrata a sà mismo como lector enfervorizado y pasional. La segunda parte es un análisis exhaustivo de Madame Bovary, cómo es y lo que significa una obra en la que se combinan con pericia la rebeldÃa, la violencia, el melodrama y el sexo. En la tercera parte se rastrea la relación de la obra de Flaubert con la historia y el desarrollo del género más representativo de la literatura moderna: la novela. Mario Vargas Llosa resulta tan solvente en su faceta de crÃtico literario como lo es en su oficio de narrador. Del encuentro de una inteligencia narrativa como la del novelista peruano con la obra más importante de uno de los autores esenciales de la literatura universal nace un ensayo que vale por todo un curso de literatura...
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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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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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The essays in this volume were selected to shed light on Vargas Llosa s liberal postulates, his stance on the Latin-American reality, the hopes and threats he anticipates for the continent, and his ideas and commitments. In addition to portraying the author s intellectual trajectory, this is an analysis of the most important events to mark the recent history of Latin America. Spanish Description:
Cuales son los postulados liberales de Vargas Llosa? Cual es su posicion ante la realidad latinoamericana? Cuales son los peligros y esperanzas que vislumbra para el continente? Como han tomado forma sus ideas y compromisos? La seleccion de ensayos que compone este volumen pretende aclarar estas cuestiones. En ellos, ademas de verse reflejado el recorrido intelectual del escritor, se analizan todos los grandes acontecimientos que han marcado la historia reciente de America Latina. No estan ordenados cronologicamente sino por temas, ilustrando las batallas que Vargas Llosa ha dado por la libertad, desde su oposicion frontal a las dictaduras, su ilusion y posterior desencanto con las revoluciones, sus criticas al nacionalismo, al populismo, al indigenismo y a la corrupcion mayor amenaza para la credibilidad de las democracias, hasta el descubrimiento de las ideas liberales, su defensa irrestricta del sistema democratico y su pasion por la literatura y el arte latinoamericano....
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La maestría de Mario Vargas Llosa se hace patente en estas páginas, un impresionante mosaico de situaciones humanas a las que sólo un escritor de su calibre podía dar tanto dramatismo y profundidad En el campamento minero de Naccos en las montañas del Perú han desaparecido tres hombres. El cabo Lituma, asignado a esta zona, vive agobiado por el misterio de las desapariciones y no cesa en su intento por dar con los responsables de estas muertes. Con su adjunto Tomás, se hallan sumidos en un ambiente bárbaro y hostil de desconfianza generalizada, donde se funden mito y realidad bajo la constante amenaza de los guerrilleros maoístas del Sendero Luminoso. Como contrapunto a este drama colectivo está la historia íntima de estos personajes, en especial la de un antiguo amor de Tomás, que él mismo narra en forma de episodios intercalados que se dan en las noches de desvelo y conversaciones con su superior. El aliento mítico de la narración, en la que se entrevén otras muchas siluetas enérgicamente trazadas, infunde una extraordinaria vida a realidades que se observan de un modo implacable y minucioso, haciendo de esta novela un clásico. ...
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The subject of fiction and life is a constant that, since distant times, has been expressed through literature. Yet in the work of no other modern author does it have the force and inventiveness as it does in the short stories of Juan Carlos Onetti. It is not an exaggeration to say that Onetti s work is almost entirely conceived to show the subtle and rich way in which human beings have built a parallel existence made up of words and images as unreal as they are persuasive to take refuge in when we want to escape the tragedies and limitations that real life imposes upon our freedom and dreams. In this essay, Vargas Llosa examines how Onetti used fiction to create an alternate reality a reality in which the answer to our daily defeats is fleeing to a fantasy world. Description in Spanish: El tema de la ficcion y la vida es una constante que, desde tiempos remotos, aparece en la literatura. Pero acaso en ningun otro autor moderno aparezca con tanta fuerza y originalidad como en las novelas y los cuentos de Juan Carlos Onetti, una obra que, sin exagerar demasiado, podriamos decir esta casi integramente concebida para mostrar la sutil y frondosa manera como los seres humanos hemos venido construyendo una vida paralela, de palabras e imagenes tan mentirosas como persuasivas, donde ir a refugiarnos para escapar de los desastres y limitaciones que a nuestra libertad y a nuestros suenos opone la vida tal como es. Basicamente lo que yo hago en este ensayo es investigar la manera en la que Onetti utilizo la ficcion como un mundo alternativo. La respuesta a la derrota cotidiana es la imaginacion: huir hacia un mundo de fantasia. Es decir, aquella operacion de donde nacio la literatura, por la que existe la literatura y por eso el titulo del libro. MARIO VARGAS LLOSA...
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