A glittering . . . novel about the revolutionary temperament--and the nature of fiction . . . . The backdrop is Mr. Vargas Llosa's native Peru, the setting, the near future, in which the country has become a battleground for the major world powers. . . . It is here, amid the garbage-heaped slums of Lima, that Mr. Vargas Llosa's narrator . . . embarks upon a project that he hopes will illuminate the problems of contemporary Peru . . . ".--THE NEW YORK TIMES.