This stylish biography of the author traces his journey from left to right, and from \u2018posh Lima\u2019 to Cricklewood<\/p>\n
\u201cAt what precise moment had Peru fucked itself up?\u201d Those words on the opening page of\u00a0Conversation in the Cathedral <\/em>announced the arrival of a writer who understood that national history could become the organising principle of fiction. At precisely the moment when\u00a0Latin America was discovering the intoxicating possibilities of magical realism \u2013 a form whose exuberance had an elective affinity\u00a0with revolutionary politics, collapsing\u00a0the distinction between the\u00a0marvellous and the possible \u2013 Mario\u00a0Vargas Llosa plumped for old-fashioned realism instead.<\/p>\n It was a question of sensibility as\u00a0much as politics, Gerald Martin suggests in this chatty yet coolly analytical biography. He traces the path\u00a0of a novelist who began by dissecting oligarchy with surgical precision and ended happily dining among its ranks, completing one of literary history\u2019s most spectacular political migrations \u2013 from the hard\u00a0left to the hard right, over the\u00a0course of\u00a0half a century.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/caba2a58bfdacd48d1313afa075578b64854014b\/22_863_2721_2176\/master\/2721.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=e7c947701a787eb974ae1a6db6bb524f\" "\\"Mario")
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