The Green House (Paperback)

Description

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"Dazzling. . . . An imaginative documentation of nature's sway over man." —New York Times Book Review

From the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, an important and passionate novel set in Peru, that explores man’s struggle with both nature and civilization

Vargas Llosa’s classic early novel takes place in Puira, a Peruvian town situated between desert and jungle, and which is torn by boredom and lust. Don Anselmo, a stranger in a black coat, builds a brothel on the outskirts of the town while he charms its innocent people, thus setting of a chain-reaction with extraordinary consequences.

This brothel, called the Green House, brings together the innocent and the corrupt: Bonificia, a young Indian girl saved by the nuns only to become a prostitute: Father Garcia, struggling for the church; and four best friends drawn to both excitement and escape.

The conflicting forces that haunt the Green House evoke a world balanced between savagery and civilization—and one which is cursed by not being able to discern between the two.

About the Author

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Mario Vargas Llosa, uno de los más destacados novelistas contemporáneos latinoamericanos, se lanzó a la fama con su novela La ciudad y los perros que obtuvo el Premio Biblioteca Breve y el Premio de la Crítica. Novelas posteriores son, entre otras, La casa verde (Premio de la Crítica y Premio Internacional de Literatura Rómulo Gallegos), Conversación en La Catedral, La guerra del fin del mundo y Lituma en los Andes con la que obtuvo el Premio Planeta 1993. Ha publicado también obras teatrales, ensayos y memorias. En 1986 compartió con Rafael Lapesa el Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras y en 1994 se le concedió el Premio Miguel de Cervantes de Literatura.

Praise For…

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“The whole spread of the major special forces at work in Peru today—the neighborhood of pimps and criminals where the Green House stands; the strange maniacal alliance between the army and the missionaries who together subjugate the Indians; and the frightful economic exploitation wreaked on everyone by the next higher echelon of power. All these forces are described in luxuriant and at times dazzling detail...an imaginative documentation of nature’s sway over man, done with all the color and terror of anyone’s worst nightmare. The translation by Gregory Rabassa is, as always, luminous and transparent.”
— New York Times Book Review

“His characters may be saints, villains, victims or nothing in particular, but they break out of the pages of this magnificent novel into the stubborn uncontainability of life itself.”
— New Statesman

"A big, sprawling symbolic novel about dream and reality."
— Kirkus Reviews