Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter

Mario Vargas Llosa · 1936–2025 · Peru

Originally La tía Julia y el escribidor (Spanish) · translated by Helen R. Lane

Why it matters

Eighteen-year-old Marito falls for his divorced aunt by marriage while moonlighting at a radio station whose star scriptwriter is slowly losing his mind mid-serial, plots and character names bleeding across his own soap operas. Vargas Llosa's funniest book, and his most openly autobiographical.

At a glance

A breezy comic voice, though alternating chapters of memoir and pastiche radio scripts track two registers at once.