Following the Nobel Prize winning author s stunning historical epic The War of the End of the World this 1984 novel (translated into English in 1986) is Mario Vargas Llosa s astute psychological portrait of a modern revolutionary and a searching account of an old friend s struggle to understand him. [This] novel is based on a historical incident and points to the futility of fanaticism in politics. The narrator is a novelist investigating the life of Mayta who participated in a fiasco of a rebellion 30 years before. To those he interviews the narrator readily admits his intention to write a novel and the novel he writes is a skillful blend of events and his investigations into them. When asked why he goes to so much trouble digging up the past he answers Because I m a realist in my novels I always try to lie knowing why I do it. The real fascination in this novel is that it is the story of its own creation.