The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto

Don Rigoberto – by day a grey insurance executive, by night a pornographer and sexual enthusiast – misses Lucrecia, his estranged second wife. The pair separated following a sexual encounter between Lucrecia and Alfonso, Rigoberto’s son. To compensate for her absence, Rigoberto fills his notebooks with memories, fantasies and unsent letters. Meanwhile, Alfonso visits Lucrecia, determined to win her love.

In The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto, Mario Vargas Llosa keeps the reader guessing which episodes are real and which issue from Rigoberto’s imagination. The novel, a wonderful mix of reality and fantasy, is sexy, funny, disquieting, and unfailingly compelling.

If you enjoyed The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto, you might also like Mario Vargas Llosa’s In Praise of the Stepmother.

Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru, 1936) is one of the most important South American writers of our time. His novels are known for their political and violent atmosphere and their attention to the moral decay of society. Through newspapers, Vargas Llosa regularly participates in the social debate. In 1990, he was a candidate for the presidency of Peru. Vargas Llosa was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010.