A fish in the water : a memoir
Mario Vargas Llosa, Helen R. Lane (Translator)
In 1990, Mario Vargas Llosa decided to run for the presidency of his native Peru, campaigning on a platform of economic reform and stringent counter-terrorism against the Sendero Luminoso, or Shining Path. His campaign against (and ultimately defeat by) Alberto Fujimori was the stuff of international headlines, transforming an eminent writer into a politician of world stature. "A Fish in the Water" is Vargas Llosa's disarming and deeply absorbing response to that profoundly heady -- and troubling -- time. In this richly personal work, Vargas Llosa evokes the experiences that gave rise to his fiction, and, in parallel, describes the social, literary, and political influences that led him to enter the political arena as a crusader for modern democracy and a free-market economy. "A Fish in the Water" offers an unexpectedly intimate look at how fact becomes fiction and at the formation of a courageous and original politician and thinker. -- From publisher's description
Print Book, English, 2011, 1994
Picador, New York, 2011, 1994