The Feast of the Goat - Couverture souple

Urania Cabral, a New York lawyer, returns to the Dominican Republic after a lifelong self-imposed exile. Once she is back in her homeland, the elusive feeling of terror that has overshadowed her whole life suddenly takes shape. Urania's own story alternates with the powerful climax of dictator Rafael Trujillo's reign. In 1961, Trujillo's decadent inner circle (which includes Urania's soon-to-be disgraced father) enjoys the luxuries of privilege while the rest of the nation lives in fear and deprivation. As Trujillo clings to power, a plot to push the Dominican Republic into the future is being formed. But after the murder of its hated dictator, the Goat, is carried out, the Dominican Republic is plunged into the nightmare of a bloody and uncertain aftermath. Now, thirty years later, Urania reveals how her own family was fatally wounded by the forces of history. In The Feast of the Goat Vargas Llosa eloquently explores the effects of power and violence on the lives of both the oppressors and those they victimized.

'The Feast of the Goat will stand out as the great emblematic novel of Latin America's twentieth century and deprives One Hundred Years of Solitude of that title.' -- Times Literary Supplement

'This impressive and important novel conveys the whole texture of a totally imprisoning way of life, and it does it with all the density of a bad dream.' --Daily Telegraph

'Vargas Llosa has pushed the boundaries of the novel, and in doing so has written a book of lasting emotional resonance.' -- New York Times

'It is a splendid novel, imbued with a passionately driving commitment.' --Spectator

'Rich in black comedy . . . The Feast of the Goat is as dark and complicated as a Jacobean tracgedy; but it is also human.' -- Observer

'It makes for page-turning reading that entertains, educates and horrifies in almost equal parts.' --Irish Independent