The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto - Tapa blanda

A classic Vargas Llosa tale of art and desire ... It reaffirms Mario Vargas Llosa's reputation, alongside Gabriel Garcia Marquez, as one of South America's finest contemporary writers. (The Times)

Beautifully written, funny, erudite and seriously anarchic. (Time Out)

Vargas Llosa's complex, gorgeous prose ... sweeps the reader into a rich confusion of art and fact, fiction and reality, where there are no vices and the only virtue is imagination. (Walter Kendrick The New York Times Book Review)

His funniest and most relaxed novel since Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. (Observer)

Vargas Llosa is boldly pushing back the boundaries of imaginative fiction explored by a Spanish tradition dating back to Don Quixote. It is a hugely ambitious work, ... which succeeds in teasing as much as entertaining ... This latest work from one of Latin America's most compelling writers is an achievement as impressive as it is disturbing. (Daily Express)

Exuberant ... A roguish and sophisticated sex comedy with a few brain teasers tipped in. (Time)

Don Rigoberto - by day a grey insurance executive, by night a pornographer and sexual enthusiast - misses Lucrecia, his estranged second wife. The pair separated following a sexual encounter between Lucrecia and Alfonso, Rigoberto's son. To compensate for her absence, Rigoberto fills his notebooks with memories, fantasies and unsent letters. Meanwhile, Alfonso visits Lucrecia, determined to win her love. In The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto, Mario Vargas Llosa keeps the reader guessing which episodes are real and which issue from Rigoberto's imagination. The novel, a wonderful mix of reality and fantasy, is sexy, funny, disquieting, and unfailingly compelling. If you enjoyed The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto, you might also like Mario Vargas Llosa's In Praise of the Stepmother.