The Discreet Hero

Two stories run in parallel: Iscariot Chacón, a retired Piuran businessman, refuses to sell his modest house to a developer who is trying to build a hotel on its site and discovers, in his refusal, a capacity for integrity he did not know he had. Felícito Yanaqué, a transport company owner in the same city, is being threatened by an extortion gang and refuses to pay. In both cases, ordinary men face a simple choice — and in the simplicity of that choice, Vargas Llosa finds the substance of a meditation on what honour costs and what it is worth.

The Discreet Hero is among Vargas Llosa’s most warmly human novels — lighter in tone than The Feast of the Goat or The War of the End of the World, but no less precise in its understanding of the moral landscape of contemporary Peru.

The ideal entry point for readers new to Vargas Llosa — and a genuine pleasure for those who know his work. Published by Faber & Faber.