His reflections on Peruvian and Latin American politics are sensible and straightforward, but quite unexceptional, at times banal, even at times a bit naive: there is precious little chance that any international monitoring will improve the quality of the Peruvian media or of the media anywhere else, nor is it at all likely that Chile, Peru and Bolivia will come to an amicable agreement about their borders in the foreseeable future. Yet the same writer has written more than one outstanding political novel, and such political novels that succeed on the level that his do are rare indeed. The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta and The Feast of the Goat are both in that category. It is what happens when his imagination is engaged, and it does not happen when it is only his intellect at work. Much of his thinking about literature and art is focused on this mystery, summed up by William Skidelsky in his Spectator review (24 March) of the essays of another novelist, J. M. Coetzee: ‘Fiction’s domain is the imagination, whereas criticism deals in facts. But despite its basic falsity, fiction at its best reveals a kind of truth that will always be inaccessible to the critic.’ Vargas Llosa on politics bears that out.

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