The Discreet Hero
A Novel
ISBN10: 1250081629
ISBN13: 9781250081629
Trade Paperback
336 Pages
$19.00
CA$26.00
Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa’s newest novel follows two fascinating characters whose lives are destined to intersect: neat, endearing Felícito Yanaqué, 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.
Felícito 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, Doña 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.
Reviews
Praise for The Discreet Hero
“In the star-studded world of the Latin American novel, Mario Vargas Llosa is a supernova."—Raymond Sokolov, The Wall Street Journal
"[A] singular all-star performance . . . An exquisite concoction, a delicious melodrama of sex and betrayal, love and revenge . . . Vargas Llosa's novel is swift, seamless, and as structurally symmetrical as a diamond."—The Washington Post
“Simultaneously exotic and familiar in the way that all great literature seems to be. Its ease is that of a mastery playing at his craft, using danger, fear, evil, and empathy to carry the reader along. . . . Mario Vargas Llosa knows exactly what he’s doing.”—Los Angeles Times
"An energetic book with a more straightforward narrative method than almost any other Vargas Llosa." —The New Yorker
Reviews from Goodreads
BOOK EXCERPTS
Read an Excerpt
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Felícito Yanaqué, the owner of the Narihualá Transport Company, left his house that morning, as he did every morning Monday to Saturday, at exactly seven thirty, after doing half an hour of qigong, taking a cold shower,...
About the author
Mario Vargas Llosa; Translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman
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