Harsh Times

<b>THE NEW NOVEL FROM THE WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE</b><br><br><b>"A wildly enjoyable book; the 85-year-old Vargas Llosa is as sharp and mordantly funny as ever." <i>Financial Times</i></b><br><b>"A compelling and propulsive literary thriller." Hari Kunzru, <i>New York Times Book Review</i></b><br><b>"A splendidly rich and absorbing novel." <i>The Scotsman</i></b><br><b>"Compelling . . . full of intrigue, backstabbing and shifting power dynamics." <i>Irish Times</i></b><br><br>Guatemala, 1954. A CIA-supported military coup topples the government. Behind this violent act is a lie passed off as truth, which forever changed the development of Latin America: that those in power encouraged the spread of Soviet communism in the Americas.<br><br>Mario Vargas Llosa has written a drama on a world stage, in which some persecutors end up as victims of the very plot they helped construct. Ironic and sensual, provocative and redemptive, <i>Harsh Times</i> is a story of international conspiracies and conflicting interests in the time of the Cold War, the echoes of which are still felt today.