The Cambridge Companion to Mario Vargas Llosa

Analyses Vargas Llosa's career as a writer and as an important cultural and political figure in Latin America and beyond.

Efrain Kristal (Edited by), John King (Edited by)

9780521682855, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 15 December 2011

256 pages
22.6 x 15 x 1.2 cm, 0.4 kg

'The scope and depth of the essays, only hinted at here, make this book an indispensable source for future studies of Vargas Llosa as a fiction writer and as one of the most important intellectuals of our time.' Malva E. Filer, Literature and Arts of the Americas

One of the major novelists in world literature over the last five decades, Mario Vargas Llosa (b. 1936) is also one of Latin America's most engaging public intellectuals, a critic of art and culture, and a playwright of distinction. This Companion's chapters chart the development of Vargas Llosa's writings from his rise to prominence in the early 1960s to the award of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010. The volume traces the development of his literary trajectory and the ways in which he has re-invented himself as a writer. His vast output of narrative fiction is the main focus, but the connections between his concerns as a creative writer and his rich career as a cultural and political figure are also teased out in this engaging, informative book.

Chronology
Introduction Efraín Kristal and John King
1. Reality, rebellion, and the paradox of power: an overview of Mario Vargas Llosa's literary themes Alonso Cueto
2. The early novels Gerald Martin
3. The total novel and the novella Efraín Kristal
4. Humour and irony Michael Wood
5. The historical novel Juan E. de Castro and Nicholas Birns
6. Innocence and corruption Fiona Mackintosh
7. The political novels Deborah Cohn
8. The erotic novels Roy C. Boland
9. The dictator novel Clive Griffin
10. From Utopia to reconciliation Efraín Kristal
11. The essays John King
12. The memoir Kelly Austin
13. The plays Evelyn Fishburn
14. Film and the novels Carolina Sitnisky
15. The interview Efraín Kristal and John King with Mario Vargas Llosa
Further reading
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers [DSK], Literary studies: plays & playwrights [DSG]