The true story of Guatemala's political turmoil of the 1950s as only a
master of fiction can tell it
Guatemala, 1954. The military coup perpetrated by Carlos Castillo Armas
and supported by the CIA topples the government of Jacobo Árbenz. Behind
this violent act is a lie passed off as truth, which forever changes the
development of Latin America: the accusation by the Eisenhower
administration that Árbenz encouraged the spread of Soviet Communism in
the Americas. Harsh Times is a story of international conspiracies and
conflicting interests in the time of the Cold War, the echoes of which
are still felt today.
In this thrilling novel, Mario Vargas Llosa fuses reality with two
fictions: that of the narrator, who freely re-creates characters and
situations, and the one designed by those who would control the politics
and the economy of a continent by manipulating its history.
Harsh Times is a gripping, revealing novel that directly confronts
recent history. No one is better suited to tell this riveting story than
Vargas Llosa, and there is no form better for it than his deeply
textured fiction. Not since The Feast of the Goat, his classic novel
of the downfall of Trujillo's regime in the Dominican Republic, has
Vargas Llosa combined politics, characters, and suspense so
unforgettably.
