It’s About Time

 

Winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize in literature, Mario Vargas Llosa

I’ve been a fan for at least a dozen years.  If you haven’t been introduced to the joys of Vargas Llosa’s writing, The Guardian gives a pretty good rundown of his most important novels.

My favorites aren’t on that list; I’ve always been more attached to the rather obscure In Praise of the Stepmother and The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto.  Both tell the tale of a 50-something secret sexual libertine and his touching – and amusing – fetish for his 40-something new bride, and the complications created in the relationship between the two by Don Rigoberto’s angelic/demonic naif pubescent son, who is developing, quite innocently, into a sexual libertine himself.  These books are full-on kinky without a trace of smut, and feature some of the funniest and most memorable scenes I’ve ever read.  In Praise of the Stepmother has been the most-borrowed book in my personal library and everyone who’s borrowed it has enjoyed it.

But you can pretty much pick up anything by Vargas Llosa and count on a good read.  The man simply doesn’t write bad books.  Though I personally enjoy him most when he taps into his incredibly rich sense of humor, I’ve really enjoyed his novels about historical events and people as well.