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Harsh Times: A Novel Audiobook
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The true story of Guatemala’s political turmoil of the 1950s as only a master of fiction can tell it
Guatemala, 1954. The military coup perpetrated by Carlos Castillo Armas and supported by the CIA topples the government of Jacobo Árbenz. Behind this violent act is a lie passed off as truth, which forever changes the development of Latin America: the accusation by the Eisenhower administration that Árbenz encouraged the spread of Soviet Communism in the Americas. Harsh Times is a story of international conspiracies and conflicting interests in the time of the Cold War, the echoes of which are still felt today.
In this thrilling novel, Mario Vargas Llosa fuses reality with two fictions: that of the narrator, who freely re-creates characters and situations, and the one designed by those who would control the politics and the economy of a continent by manipulating its history.
Harsh Times is a gripping, revealing novel that directly confronts recent history. No one is better suited to tell this riveting story than Vargas Llosa, and there is no form better for it than his deeply textured fiction. Not since The Feast of the Goat, his classic novel of the downfall of Trujillo’s regime in the Dominican Republic, has Vargas Llosa combined politics, characters, and suspense so unforgettably.
A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus & Giroux
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"A compelling and propulsive literary thriller, deeply informed by his experience as a public intellectual and a practicing politician.”
— New York Times Book Review
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“A wildly enjoyable book.”
— Financial Times (London) -
“Explores evergreen themes–skirmishes between the powerful and powerless, how war erodes our humanity―with gallows humor.”
— Oprah Daily -
“History here gets a compelling human face through an artist’s dramatic brilliance.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review) -
“An unsettling reminder of the complicated relationship between storytelling and politics.”
— Booklist (starred review)
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About Mario Vargas Llosa
Mario Vargas Llosa (1936–2025) was an acclaimed author of numerous books, including The Feast of the Goat, In Praise of the Stepmother, The Time of the Hero, and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. He was awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature “for his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual’s resistance, revolt, and defeat.” He has also won the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world’s most distinguished literary honor. His many works include The Feast of the Goat, In Praise of the Stepmother, and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, all published by FSG.