From Publishers Weekly
Peruvian author Vargas Llosa is one of the most prolific writers of our time; his novels, essays, and journalistic pieces are released in a steady stream, never seeming to suffer in quality. This latest volume collects his columns from the celebrated Spanish daily El Pais between the years 1992 and 2000. In his introduction, he explains that the title of the book is taken from a column that was written in homage to Mexican essayist Octavio Paz, "not because these texts have been written passionately or belligerently. The truth is that I write in the most dispassionate manner possible." As expected, he takes on a variety of literary and political topics from the economic theorist George Soros to the painter Frida Kahlo and the cults of Reverend Moon and Scientology. He provides a balanced discussion of the Eli n Gonz lez affair, indicting both Castro and the Miami exile community, and a reflection of Tom s Eloy Martinez's Santa Evita (Saint Evita, Vintage, 1997), a novel about the "pleasures" of Argentine necrophilia. The book includes a bibliography, unusual for journalistic collections, and an index testaments to Vargas Llosa's incredibly wide-ranging authority. Recommended for all libraries and bookstores. Ed Morales, Brooklyn, NY Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Book Description
These essays offer the vision and the analysis of a convulsive, end-of-century society from one of contemporary literature’s most recognized intellectuals. Here, he shares his views in understanding the complexity of our time. Vargas Llosa goes into depth with subjects such as the legalization of abortion in Spain, the problems derived from emigration, Nelson Mandela’s military prison in Robben Island and Baudrillard criticism on postmodernism.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Este libro ofrece la visión y el análisis de la convulsa sociedad de fin de siglo de uno de los intelectuales más lúcidos de la literatura contemporánea, quien además aporta las claves para entender la complejidad de nuestro tiempo. Los intereses del autor varían tanto en los temas elegidos como en el ámbito geográfico al que se circunscriben: los viejos amigos con quienes se relacionaba en Barcelona en los años sesenta, la despenalización del aborto en España, los problemas derivados de la emigración, la desaparición de la figura del autor literario con una obra que perdure a través de la historia, el retrato del pintor belga Paul Delvaux, el presidio de Nelson Mandela en Robben Island o la ácida crítica al posmodernismo de Baudrillard.

English Translation: This book offers the vision and the analysis of convulsa society of aim of century of one of the lúcidos intellectuals more of the contemporary Literature, that in addition contributes the keys to understand the complexity of our time. The interests of the author vary so much in the subjects chosen as in the geographic scope to which they are confined: the old friends to those who he was related in Barcelona in the Sixties, the legalization of the abortion in Spain, the problems derived from the emigration, the disappearance of the figure of the literary author with a work that lasts through history, the picture of the Belgian painter Paul Delvaux, the military prison of Nelson Mandela in Robben Island or the acid critic to the posmodernismo of Baudrillard

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly