Harsh Times (2021) by Mario Vargas Llosa

Book Review

Harsh Times (2021)

by Mario Vargas Llosa

  I was surprised by the lack of American press for Harsh Times, by Peruvian 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature winner Mario Vargas Llosa.   After all, America had its greasy hands all over the events depicted in Harsh Times, the lead up and aftermath of the CIA-backed coup against left-leaning Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz, who was, upon reflection, a pretty decent guy who didn't deserve what he got.   The style is an almost classical form of "new journalism" where Llosa fictionalizes the real-life participants or pastiches of those people, creating a deft, cinema/television influenced narrative. 

  Thematically, there is heavy overlay with his take down of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, The Feast of the Goat (2000), which, in my mind will forever link that dictator with his fictional(?) habit of deflowering virgins with his fingers because his impotence prevents him from normal intercourse.  And ladies and gentlemen, if that is the kind of detail that bothers you, then steer clear of this book, which features "Miss Guatemala" the disinherited teen bride of a local magnate who becomes the consort of the dictator who replaces Arbenz after the CIA backed coup and then manages a Zelig/Forrest Gump type afterlife as an anti-Communist radio personality based out of the Dominican Republic.