Earlier this week
...the greatest writer to have appeared in Latin America since the so-called "Boom" that produced Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Mario Vargas Llosa and Carlos Fuentes. And he knew it. In fact, Bolano took pride in being against magical realism. He derided his...
...not everyone must like what you like. I've been taught this lesson before. I remember reading an essay by the novelist Mario Vargas Llosa in which he argues for the necessity of vulgarity in serious literature. Thomas Hardy said a writer needed to be...
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... Alex Clark is the editor of 'Granta' When bad times mean good books If Mario Vargas Llosa is right, we book lovers are in for a high old time of it. The Peruvian novelist and former presidential candidate has considered the global economic crisis and...
...the wife of a diplomat. She is, of course, bad in a good way, and Ricardo finds himself in the grip of a sexual obsession. Vargas Llosa gives some cherished male fantasies a literary makeover in a novel that purports to take its inspiration from the more...
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...Republic strongman Rafael Trujillo is relatively unknown in the United States. A quick check of Amazon shows that Mario Vargas Llosa’s novel doesn’t rank among the top 100,000 sellers. In contrast, Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao—which...
...are so many great writers. An introspection throws up one clear favourite. In my case the clear answer has to be Mario Vargas Llosa, a Peruvian author, or rather, one book of his , Aunt Julia and the Script-writer (Spanish: La tía Julia y el escribidor),...
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