Book of the Week: The Storyteller by Mario Vargas Llosa

Storytelling brings out the most joyful memories of one’s life. In my case, storytelling reminds me of when I was a child and my mother used to tell me stories about fairy tales, which at that age I was completely amazed by them. I loved them! 

However, storytelling has its own meaning for everyone. So stop today by La Casa Azul Bookstore, enjoy your new book of the week, and let the magic of storytelling transport you to the journey waiting to be explore.

- Yajaira

Title: The Storyteller

Author: Mario Vargas Llosa

Genre: Fiction (English)

Synopsis:  

 “Through the alternation of two narrators, the novel presents a story of Saul Zuratas, a man who decides to leave his past identity behind and go native in one of the indigenous tribes of Peru. Unlike the ethnographers and linguists who explore the aborigine tribes for professional or rational reasons, Saul’s motive is intimate and emotional – it is an act of love. But his noble intention becomes questionable when the reader gradually finds out that the hero could not leave behind the western dominant discourses on which his entire life had been built.  This novel deals with the problem that not only persists in Peru, but also in many other counties of Latin America: the coexistence of the modern society which is prepared to participate in the cultural, economical and political life of the Global World, and of the indigenous population, which is viewed by modern societies as archaic and primitive.” 

(http://www.english.emory.edu)

Review: 

“It is in the chapters narrated by the storyteller that the novel comes wonderfully alive, transporting the reader to a world where men hang suspended in a delicate web of cosmic relationships.” –Mark Dery, The Philadelphia Inquirer