(Spanish: El Hablador) - 1987
Reviewed by Marianne
from Let's Read
When that Nobel Prize winner for Literature was announced, I was
quite excited because I had read a book by him recently. A young man
leaves Western civilization and lives among the Machiguenga Indians in
the jungle of Peru. He becomes their storyteller, a person who passes on
their culture's history and belief. The author has a very unique style,
quite different from anything I know, the story is both mystical and
mythical. A highly interesting novel. I definitely wanted to read more
of this interesting author and added "Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter" to my list of books recently. Just as fascinating.
From the back cover:
"At a small gallery in Florence, a Peruvian writer happens upon a
photograph of a tribal storyteller deep in the jungles of the Amazon. He
is overcome with the eerie sense that he knows this man...that the
storyteller is not an Indian at all but an old school friend, Saul
Zuratas. As recollections of Zuratas flow through his mind, the writer
begins to imagine Zuratas's transformation from a modern to a central
member of the unacculturated Machiguenga tribe. Weaving the mysteries of
identity, storytelling, and truth, Vargas Llosa has created a
spellbinding tale of one man's journey from the modern world to our
origins, abandoning one in order to find meaning in both."
Mario Vargas Llosa received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010 "for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat".
Mario Vargas Llosa received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (Friedenspreis) in 1996.
Read my other reviews of the Nobel Prize winners for Literature.
Original Post on "Let's Read".
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