Sunday book pick: Mario Vargas Llosa’s novel ‘Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter’ is a total romp

“If I’d told them that I was writing stories and dreamt of becoming a writer, they would doubtless have thought, I have a screw loose. And if I’d told them about my romance with a divorcée, who was not my mistress but my sweetheart, my enamorada, they would have taken me a cojudo a la vela – an ass under full sail.”

Eighteen-year-old Mario’s life is anchored by two desires – to become a writer and to be taken seriously as his 32-year-old Aunt Julia’s romantic partner. Like Indian families, Peruvian families are sprawling and knitted together by relations direct and distant. Mario’s “Aunt” Julia is his mother’s brother’s wife’s sister – a relation not close enough to not be demonised as incest, but not distant enough to evade gossip and the dramatic fury of his parents and other uncles and aunts. While the chief reservations are against being related and the age gap, attendant complaints include her being a foreigner (a Bolivian) and an incorrigible flirt, and putting the Catholic church to shame by getting a divorce.

The drama

Aunt Julia skips around Lima in pursuit of a new husband, her eyes firmly set on ageing, wealthy men. Mario and Aunt Julia get off on the wrong foot...

Read more