Author: Mario Vargas Llosa
Book title: The Cubs (Los cachorros)
No. of braille volumes: 1
No. of pages in braille issue: 158
Publisher of the book in black print: Geopoetika [Geh-oh-poetica]
Place and year of publishing: Belgrade, 2024
No. of pages in black print: 77
About the book:
The story of the growing up and maturing of “the cubs” from the good, rich houses of a microcosm called Miraflores (the richest municipality, not only in Lima, but in the whole of Peru), who in their thirties – when the novel ends – will become what is called beautiful people in today’s ironic urban terminology, is told both realistically and parodically. Vargas Llosa dedicated two full years (1965 and 1966) to the patient shaping of this small masterpiece, which today can be seen as a synthesis, as a compressed essence of his voluminous creativity.
Regardless of what fate The Cubs will have in the entire oeuvre of Vargas Llosa, this cocktail of themes (violence, social injustice, machismo, alienation, condemnation of social hypocrisy), style and favourite narrative techniques of the Peruvian Nobel laureate, remains as a concise guide through his great work and a reliable gateway to this exciting journey.