Product Description

A controversial novel set in an isolated, run-down community in the Andes. Part detective story and part political allegory, it offers a panoramic view of Peruvian society, of the country's recent political violence, and of its cultural heritage.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #46309 in Books
• Published on: 2004-11-04
• Original language: Spanish
• Binding: Paperback
• 276 pages

Customer Reviews

A gripping overview of Peruvian Society!
The novel is set at a remote and grim location in the Peruvian Andes, where a company of labourers are building a road. Two policemen are stationed by the village that has sprung up due to the construction works, and they spend most of their time contemplating the misery in which they live until a number of people begin to disappear. The investigation leads the policemen to interact with the distrustful villagers/labourers and the local inn-keeper... The mystery quickly thickens and the novel, even if not Vargas LLosa's best, is truly gripping! It provides an excellent overview of Peruvian society and is difficult to put down.

frightening
In an effort to learn more about Peru before a trip, I bought this book: BAD IDEA. From the tourists who are taken off a bus by Shining Path guerrillas and stoned to death, to the descriptions of various human sacrifices to ward off the devil, this is not a travel book. Then again, it shouldn't be classified as one. With dialogue that is occasionally reminiscent of Manuel Puig's Kiss of the Spider Woman, this is a surreal portrait of Peru - beautiful and yet horrifying.

Witchcraft and terrorism in Peru
Prior to spending six months teaching and travelling in Peru I thought it sensible to become aquainted with the country's most celebrated author. I was in for a shock. This is not the perfect travel companion for a visit to the country, beginning as it does with the stoning to death of two French tourists by the Shining Path. Set at the height of the terrorist war waged by Abimael Guzman's Maoist guerillas, the book centres around two policemen posted to an isolated Andean mining town to investigate a succession of disappearances. The book explores their boredom, paranoia and bleak fatalism as they become haunted by the spectral superstitions of the mountain community, fear of death at the hands of the Sendero Luminoso, and their own questionable pasts.

Vargas Llosa uses alternating dialogue to portray narratives that are separated spacially and temporally, enforcing one of the writer's principal themes: the struggle of individual liberty in an oppressive reality. Partly influenced by Satre, and partly by Modernism, Vargas Llosa is a willfully experimental and uncompromising author that goes to great lengths to disorientate and unsettle the reader. Death in the Andes, like many of his novels, operates principally on an allegorical level, creating a vivid tableaux of Peruvian myth, culture and politics at a critical time in its development. Brutal and depressing (not one to take on the bus to Macchu Picchu!) it is partly a hard-boiled detective story and partly a metaphorical journey into Peru's heart of darkness.