Mario Vargas Llosa

Mario Vargas Llosa's latest novel. A mystery that captures the contradictions of a whole country.

Toño Azpilcueta breathes and lives for Creole music and he is unquestionably its greatest authority and collector in Peru. But instead of this finding him a place among the Lima intelligentsia, he is only able to contribute with his vast knowledge to trashy magazines that pay him a pittance.

One night Toño attends a soirée to listen to a guitarist he has never heard of. His name is Lalo Molfino and, as soon as the first chords sound, Toño realizes that he is listening to someone of astonishing talent. In his write-up, he predicts a successful career for Lalo Molfino, but some time later he finds out that the musician has died in the Hospital Obrero in complete anonymity. How could the greatest guitarist in the history of Peru become destitute? Who was Lalo Molfino? Why doesn't anyone seem to remember his name or his music?

Toño embarks on a journey into the heart of Peru, determined to write a book about Lalo Molfino that he also hopes will be a great book about the culture of his country in the light of Creole music. The music that emerged in the poorest back streets of Lima and worked the miracle of uniting, perhaps for the first time, all Peruvians under the same sky.

"Endowed with legendary discipline and brutal talent, Mario Vargas Llosa has created an immense tableau of life in Peru and its contradictions, a critical portrayal of society, but above all, a literary universe unparalleled in our language. It is populated by complex and unforgettable characters and stories that can provoke, alert, teach, but above all, move us as if they were part of our own lives." Lectura, El Mundo