The Bad Girl : A Novel
Author(s): Mario Vargas Llosa
WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE
A New York Times Notable Book of 2007
"Splendid, suspenseful, and irresistible . . . A contemporary love story that explores the mores of the urban 1960s--and 70s and 80s."--The New York Times Book Review
Ricardo Somocurcio is in love with a bad girl. He loves her as a teenager known as "Lily" in Lima in 1950, when she flits into his life one summer and disappears again without explanation. He loves her still when she reappears as a revolutionary in 1960s Paris, then later as Mrs. Richardson, the wife of a wealthy Englishman, and again as the mistress of a sinister Japanese businessman in Tokyo. However poorly she treats him, he is doomed to worship her. Charting Ricardo's expatriate life through his romances with this shape-shifting woman, Vargas Llosa has created a beguiling, epic romance about the life-altering power of obsession.
Review(s):
“Llosa writes an unabashed love story and makes no apologies for it. He seamlessly weaves it into the rich texture of the social atmosphere of the times. . . . Written with passion and energy that delivers.” —Rocky Mountain News
“Perversely charming . . . irresistibly entertaining.” —The Washington Post Book World
“A marvelous novel.” —Chicago Tribune
“Spans decades and continents--and in the process, with a deftness that borders on literary sleight of hand, bridges the personal and the universal.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“A beautifully constructed, stinging tease of a novel.” —The Seattle Times
Winner Nobel Prize in Literature (2010), Nobel Prize For Literature (2010)
ISBN: 9780312427764