Five Street Corners

Mario Vargas Llosa / 侯健People's Literature Publishing House · ChinaFeb 2023

Rating 4.0
Word count
139K words
Chapters
23
ISBN
9787020159253

Tags

Foreign Literature Suspense ThrillerPolitical AllegoryPower GameComplex HumanitySocial CritiqueMoral DilemmaSatirical StyleLima Setting

Summary

In Lima, Peru, after a curfew, the wealthy lady Marisa and her friend Chabela share a secret. The next day, Marisa's husband, the rich mining magnate Enrique, receives in his office Rolando Garro, editor-in-chief of the gossip weekly Exposé, and is handed a stack of erotic photos that make his heart pound with fear. Soon afterward, the bold and unscrupulous weekly editor is found dead in the city's dirty, chaotic neighborhood—Five Corners. Subsequently, the weekly's lead writer, young female journalist Julieta, is brought to the office of the presidential adviser and told that the former editor-in-chief has been secretly executed for suspected extortion, and that she is to succeed him as editor-in-chief and take on a secret mission... This book is a novel by Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Vargas Llosa, first published in 2016. It cuts into a series of hidden problems in Peruvian politics, economy, judiciary, culture, and more through a sex scandal involving a business celebrity, dramatically presenting a shocking, thrilling, and dizzying "exposé."

Editor's review

Five Corners is a novel by Mario Vargas Llosa, winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature, published in 2016. The work continues Vargas Llosa's longstanding social critique and narrative ambition but turns its lens on the media and power ecology of contemporary Lima, Peru. Using the murder of a well-known columnist as a thread, the novel weaves a complex network covering the press, political and business elites, and ordinary people, profoundly revealing how truth is distorted and devoured by power, money, and rumor in a society undergoing democratic transition.

As a late-career work, Five Corners displays the master's consummate narrative skill. He deftly employs shifting multiple perspectives, excerpts from news reports, character monologues, and dialogue to construct a three-dimensional and tension-filled panorama of Lima. The novel is not only an investigation of a crime but also a literary dissection of information dissemination mechanisms in the "post-truth" era—how public sentiment can be easily manipulated and how private life becomes public gossip and political bargaining chips amid the rise of social media and the decline of traditional media.

Vargas Llosa's writing remains sharp, with penetrating portrayals of power-sex transactions, media corruption, and class barriers, yet its core is filled with compassion for individual dignity and memory. The characters, whether at the top of the pyramid or at the bottom, are driven by desire and fear as they try to piece together their own truths from fragmented reality. The novel transcends simple political allusion and asks a more fundamental question: in an age when truth is scarce, how do we tell stories, and how are we defined by stories? For readers familiar with Vargas Llosa's earlier works such as The City and the Dogs and Conversation in the Cathedral, this novel will reveal a subtle evolution in his creative vision—from grand historical narrative to fine-grained analysis of micro-mechanisms of power—while the edge of critique and literary passion remain undiminished.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. It can be read alongside Vargas Llosa's nonfiction work The Truth of Lies to understand his literary ideas and engagement with reality
  2. Pay attention to the shifts among different narrative voices and appreciate how Vargas Llosa presents the many facets of truth through form itself
  3. After reading, further reading on contemporary Peruvian history or Latin American media studies can deepen understanding of the background

About the publisher

People's Literature Publishing House China · Founded in 1951

People's Literature Publishing House publishes across classical literature, foreign literature, documentary writing and folk literature, with 492 titles in its catalogue. Representative books range from the Chinese classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms to Lao She's Teahouse and Longxu Ditch in the Selected Works of Lao She, as well as translated foreign literature such as Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, Dante's Divine Comedy and Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels, alongside documentary and fictional works including Primo Levi's If This Is a Man and João Guimarães Rosa's The Devil to Pay in the Backlands. Its authors include Chinese writers such as Lao She, translators such as Shen Emeri and Li Wenjun, and foreign authors such as James Wood. Overall, the house has a strong record in editing classic works and translating foreign literature, with a publishing character that bridges Chinese and foreign writing and values textual quality.

Contents

  1. 版权信息
  2. 1.玛丽萨的梦
  3. 2.意外的访客
  4. 3.迈阿密的周末
  5. 4.企业家和律师
  6. 5.流言的老巢
  7. 6.崩坏的演艺界
  8. 7.精疲力竭的基克
  9. 8.“扒皮女”
  10. 9.奇特的生意
  11. 10.三个滑稽人
  12. 11.丑闻
  13. 12.公共食堂
  14. 13.失踪
  15. 14.夫妻关系的破裂与修复
  16. 15.“扒皮女”的恐惧
  17. 16.庄园主和中国姑娘
  18. 17.胡安·佩内塔的离奇经历
  19. 18.工程师卡尔德纳斯最难熬的一夜
  20. 19.“扒皮女”和当权者
  21. 20.乱象
  22. 21.《大曝光》特刊
  23. 22.圆满结局？

FAQ

What are the characteristics of this novel compared with Vargas Llosa's earlier works? Five Corners continues Vargas Llosa's critique of power, corruption, and social injustice, but its setting is fully contemporary and focuses on opinion manipulation and privacy invasion in the new media environment. The narrative pace is tighter and the crime-suspense elements are stronger, while the literary quality and intellectual depth at its core remain as before.
What does the title "Five Corners" signify? "Five Corners" is both a real historic landmark in Lima and a symbol of the convergence of multiple narrative threads, social classes, and versions of truth in the novel. It suggests the story's polycentric nature and how, from different perspectives, "truths" may stand adjacent like street corners yet be entirely different.
Does reading this book require a lot of background knowledge about Peru? No. Vargas Llosa's narrative itself provides sufficient context. Although knowledge of Peruvian political and media history can add layers to the reading, the novel's analysis of human nature and its revelation of power mechanisms are universal, and any reader concerned with contemporary society can resonate with it.

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About the author

Mario Vargas Llosa Author · Peru · 1936–2025

Mario Vargas Llosa (1936–2025) was a Peruvian novelist and essayist, a representative figure of Latin America's "Boom" literature and the winner of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature. His major works include The City and the Dogs, The Green House, Conversation in The Cathedral, The Feast of the Goat, The War of the End of the World, Captain Pantoja and the Special Service, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, and the memoir A Fish in Water. His novels often unfold through interwoven multiple storylines and shifting time frames, dealing with military school life, the urban underclass, dictatorship and the workings of power, in a coldly observant and satirical style. Beyond fiction, he wrote essays, documentary literature and literary criticism, probing Latin American social reality and power structures with wide influence. The library holds 18 of his works.

侯健 Author

Public information about Hou Jian is limited, and the available details mainly center on his works. The library holds ten titles by him, spanning foreign literature, literary appreciation, law, biography, and Marxist philosophy, which indicates a broad range of reading and writing interests. Judging from his representative works, he pays close attention to Latin American literature, with titles such as More Than Magic: A First Course in Latin American Literature and The Obsession with Writing: The Life and Work of Vargas Llosa, and he has translated works including No One Lights the Lamps and Five Corners. He also explores Borges and Vargas Llosa in depth, as in Vargas Llosa on Borges: Half a Century with Borges. At the same time, his interests extend to criticism and institutional questions, as shown in The Right to Criticize: The Legal Principles and System of Citizen Criticism, as well as to Nietzsche studies in The Madman of Reason: Nietzsche. Overall, his works combine literary criticism, translation, and reflective essays, and will appeal to readers interested in Latin American literature and broader humanistic themes.