In Praise of the Stepmother

Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, this classic novel erotically explores the relationships in one family.

Mario Vargas Llosa lures readers into a passionate world of family life and erotic love with the story of Don Rigoberto, his second wife, Lucretia, and Rigoberto’s prepubescent son, Alfonso. Although the group appears to be a happy household, within this small constellation lurk the shadows of perversion and the limitless boundaries of familial passion.

“Vargas Llosa is a writer of promethean authority, making outstanding fiction in whatever direction he turns. . . . Erotically stimulating, artfully self-assured, In Praise of the Stepmother is a steamy as it is intelligent.” —Newsday

“Startling . . . Not only would an American presidential candidate not have written it, but the National Endowment for the Arts wouldn’t have given it a grant.” —The New Yorker