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.’ Lectura, El Mundo

‘With his intact sense of narrative rhythm, impeccable rigor in handling data and references derived from overwhelming research, and the skillful simplicity of his dialogue, [...] his dissident writing shatters the world as he had read that heroes did in chivalric novels. Returning to his roots, he charges and accounts for a timeless insurrection against man and the world.’ El Periódico 

‘The novel is permeated by a charming sentimental air and exhales melancholy. It is elegant and heartfelt, characteristic of an author who relives his life experiences because he knows that time is catching up with him.’ Letra Global, El Español

‘That's where the greatness of this story lies, in which Vargas Llosa puts all his expertise and his ample intelligence at the service of a good tale. Azpilcueta is also a modern Don Quixote, a wandering knight who raises a brand-new discourse against the world and the lack of imagination.’ Zenda Libros

‘The great literary quality of Vargas Llosa makes it easy for an entertaining narrative, outside the dogmas of current events, to be filled with necessary inquiries about culture, history, identity, loneliness, empire, the Spanish language, garbage, and everyone's loves.’ El País 

‘Vargas Llosa alternates chapters that reproduce passages from that work in progress with the investigations and adventures of Azpilcueta, combining narration and essay and achieving the rare balance of making us interested in both the evolution of the Peruvian waltz and the plot that revolves around the folklorist.’ Babelia, El País 

‘This huachafo* novel contributes to Vargas Llosa's significant exploration: to dissect that human drama, a source of dissatisfaction, tragic and vain feats, glorious and huachafo visions, which arises when imperfect beings believe they have found the keys to perfection. *Huachafería is an expressive mode that is close to cheesiness but is much more: a very Peruvian way of seeing and being in the world, a way of facing existence in which feeling predominates over reason and whose best expression is found, precisely, in the Creole waltz.’ Letras libres