Reading update

The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


So good and so complex that it has driven me to re-read Os sertões, the reportage of the war of Canudos (Brazil) by Euclides da Cunha that inspired this novel. Next I'll re-read the novel better to understand the uses and transformations Vargas Llosa made of this violent history.

I'm reading Os sertões in a new translation: Euclides da Cunha, Backlands : the Canudos Campaign, trad. Elizabeth Lowe (New York: Penguin Books, 2010).  I doubt that I could get through the original, in Brazilian Portuguese, without a major effort. La guerra del fin del mundo I'm reading in the language in which it was written — always preferable, when possible. I wish I read more languages.

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