The Feast of the Goat (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Mario Vargas Llosa
- First Published: 2000
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: 1918-1996; focused on 1961, especially May 30, 1961
- Setting: The Dominican Republic
- Principal Characters: Generalissimo Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina, Doña Altagracia Julia Molina, Doña María Martínez Trujillo, General Ramfis Trujillo, Senator Agustín Cabral, Urania Cabral, Senator Henry Chirinos, Colonel Johnny Abbes García, General José René Román, Pedro Livio Cedeño, Amado García Guerrero, Antonio de la Maza, Salvador Estrella Sadhalá, Antonio Imbert, President Joaquín Balaguer, Sister Mary
- Genres: Long fiction, Roman à clef
- Subjects: Dictators, 1960’s, Caribbean, Power, personal or social, Twentieth century, Islands, Politicians, Assassination, Conspiracies or conspirators, Torture, Totalitarianism, Dominican Republican or Dominicans, Heads of state, Impotence
- Locales: Dominican Republic
Both Hollywood and the Nobel Prize Committee will likely take a close look at this masterful study of autocracy by Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa. The Feast of the Goat, a fictionalized account of the notorious Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic, has all the ingredients of a Hollywood action thriller: repression, assassination, manhunts, shootouts, torture, sex, characters with colorful nicknames, tropical setting, and Latin music (most of the sex takes place offstage, but Hollywood can remedy that). At the same time, the novel is a serious monitory work about...
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