The Time of the Hero

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The Time of the Hero

by Mario Vargas Llosa

Mario Vargas Llosa was born in Arequipa, Peru, in 1936. His parents separated before his birth, and shortly after he was born his mother moved with the infant to Bolivia. After ten years in Bolivia, Vargas Llosa's mother was reconciled with his father and took her son back to Peru, to reunite the family in Lima, the capital. Disturbed by his twelve-yearold son's literary efforts, Vargas Llosa's father enrolled the boy in the Leoncio Prado Military School in an attempt to change his direction. Vargas Llosa hated the school and left after three years to spend his last year in a civilian high school. Inspired by his experience at the Leoncio Prado, Vargas Llosa used the school as the setting for his first novel, The Time of the Hero.

Events in History at the Time of the Novel

Peruvian politics. Throughout the twentieth century, the state of affairs in Peru has seen almost constant upheaval, with a succession of rulers and regimes that ranged from moderate to dictatorial. Throughout the 1920s a U.S.-supported president, Augusto Leguia, served primarily the interests of the local oligarchy and foreign investors.

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