The Story of Mayta

Description

The story of Mayta represents a new direction in Vargas Llosa’s work. The novelist, who gathers testimonies that form the novel’s structure, ultimately reveals that reality is entirely different, far impoverished than the fictional narrative, thus confirming the notion that fiction can be richer and more compelling than history. In a ravaged country subjected to foreign invasion, mired in dire social and economic conditions, and shrouded in the darkness of the unknown, the novelist—through multiple testimonies—seeks to reconstruct the story of a revolutionary fighter named Alejandro Mayta, the hero of a failed revolutionary attempt in 1958, and subsequently imprisoned several times under dubious circumstances. At the end of this long investigation, the confrontation with reality places this quixotic tale in its precise context. It is a bitter and tragicomic vision of revolutionary extremism and a yearning for epics.