The Way to Paradise (Magill’s Literary Annual 2004)
At a glance:
- Author: Mario Vargas Llosa
- First Published: 2003
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: 1844-1903
- Setting: Various locations in France, including Paris and Arles; London; Arequipa and Lima, Peru; Tahiti; and Atuona in the Marquesas Islands
- Principal Characters: Flora Tristán, Paul Gauguin, Aline Chazal Gauguin, Gustave Arosa, Mette Gad Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, André Chazal, Don Pío Tristán, Olympia Maleszewska Chodzko
- Genres: Long fiction, Translation
- Subjects: France or French people, Twentieth century, Nineteenth century, Art or artists, Paris, England or English people, Islands, Grandparents or grandchildren, London, Painting or painters, Reformers, Peru
- Locales: Paris, France, London, England, Lima, Peru, Tahiti, Marquesas
During his childhood in Peru, Paul Gauguin may well have played a game called “el paraiso en la otra esquina,” or, translated literally, “paradise in the other corner.” Whether or not Gauguin later remembered the game, as Mario Vargas Llosa has his Gauguin character do in the novel El paraiso en la otra esquina, the painter was indeed obsessed by his search for an earthly Eden. What makes this book so fascinating is that Vargas Llosa has paired the life story of the famous artist with that of Paul’s grandmother, Flora Tristán, a social reformer, who was just as...
[The entire page is 1836 words long]
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