The Storyteller is a novel by Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa

Mario Vargas Llosa

Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquis of Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian-Spanish writer, politician, journalist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate. Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading authors of his generation...

. The story tells of a man who leaves civilization and becomes a "storyteller" for the Machiguenga

Machiguenga

The Machiguenga are an indigenous people of the Amazon Basin jungle regions of southeastern Peru, east of Machu Picchu and close to the borders of Bolivia and Brazil. The people are short, but stoutly built, with broad facial features, and very rarely overweight...

 Indians. The novel thematizes the Westernization of indigenous peoples through missions and through anthropological studies, and questions the perceived notion that indigenous cultures are set in stone.

Publication history

• 1987, Spain (Barcelona), Seix Barral Biblioteca Breve
• English trans.: 1989, USA, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
  Farrar, Straus and Giroux
  Farrar, Straus and Giroux is an American book publishing company, founded in 1946 by Roger W. Straus, Jr. and John C. Farrar. Known primarily as Farrar, Straus in its first decade of existence, the company was renamed several times, including Farrar, Straus and Young and Farrar, Straus and Cudahy...
  
  

Explanation of the novel's title

The "storyteller" (hablador) of the title refers primarily to a position within Machiguenga culture—to a person who preserves and recites the culture's history and beliefs to the rest of the tribe. The narrator, himself a writer, is fascinated by this type of person in various cultures around the world, such as the Celtic seanchaí, which he refers to for comparison; he is even more intrigued to find that in the twenty years since his first encounter with habladores, they seem to have disappeared--none of the Machiguenga will even acknowledge the storyteller exists.

The "storyteller" has a secondary reference to the narrator himself, a writer who briefly runs a television show that tries to copy the work of the hablador by presenting assorted stories of cultural significance.

Critical studies

Because of its focus on the role of storytelling within culture, the novel has received numerous critical studies, including:

• "Language, Absence, and Narrative Impossibility in Mario Vargas Llosa's El Hablador." By: Newmark, Julianne; Latin American Literary Review, 2003 Jan-June; 31 (61): 5-22.
• "Mascarita's Metamorphosis: Vargas Llosa and Kafka
  Franz Kafka
  Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
  
  ." By: Caldwell, Roy Chandler, Jr.; Comparatist: Journal of the Southern Comparative Literature Association, 2001 May; 25: 50-68.
• "Mario Vargas Llosa Writes Of(f) the Native: Modernity and Cultural Heterogeneity in Peru
  Peru
  Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
  
  ." By: Kokotovic, Misha; Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, 2001 Spring; 25 (3): 445-67.
• "Mario Vargas Llosa's El hablador as a Discourse of Conquest." By: Castro Urioste, José; Studies in Twentieth Century Literature, 2000 Summer; 24 (2): 241-55.
• "Between Translations: Mario Vargas Llosa's El Hablador." By: Fahey, Felicia; Cincinnati Romance Review, 1999; 18: 46-53
• "Bivocality, Identity and Unreliable Narrators in Vargas Llosa's The Storyteller." By: Nicosia, James; Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, 1999; 26 (2): 137-50.
• "A Fascination for Stories: The Call to Community and Conversion in Mario Vargas Llosa's The Storyteller." By: Geddes, Jennifer L.; Literature & Theology: An International Journal of Theory, Criticism and Culture, 1996 Dec; 10 (4): 370-77.
• "Vargas Llosa, The Storyteller, and the Premature Demise of Ethnography
  Ethnography
  Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
  
  ." By: Gallagher, Thomas E.; MACLAS: Latin American Essays, 1992; 6: 121-33.
• "Vargas Llosa and The Storyteller: The Failure of Ethnography
  Ethnography
  Ethnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
  
   and the Recuperation of Writing." By: Cameron, Douglas M.; MACLAS: Latin American Essays, 1992; 6: 135-45.
• "Reading and Writing for Meaning: Narrative and Biography in El hablador." By: Snook, Margaret L.; Mester, 1991 Spring; 20 (1): 63-71.
• "The Storyteller: A Modern Paradox." By: Peterson, Jennifer; Torre de Papel, 1991 Winter; 1 (2): 48-55.
• "Mario Vargas Llosa's El hablador: Variations on a Theme." By: Perricone, Catherine R.; South Eastern Latin Americanist: Quarterly Bulletin of the South Eastern Council of Latin American Studies, 1991 June; 35 (1): 1-10.
• "The Storyteller, Mario Vargas Llosa's Two Tales of the Amazon
  Peruvian Amazon
  The Peruvian Amazon is the area of the Amazon jungle included in the territory of Peru, from the east of the Andes to borders with Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil and Bolivia. This region comprises 60% of the country and is marked by a large degree of biodiversity...
  
  ." By: Prodoscimi, María del Carmen; Américas (English Edition), 1989 Mar.-Apr.; 41 (2): 22-27.
• "Writer-Speaker? Speaker-Writer? Narrative Cultural Intervention in Mario Vargas Llosa's El hablador." By: Acosta Cruz, María Isabel; Inti: Revista de Literatura Hispanica, 1989 Spring-Fall; 29-30: 133-145.
• "Mario Vargas Llosa and Reality's Revolution: El hablador." By: Davis, Mary E. IN: Bevan, David (ed.) Literature and Revolution. Amsterdam: Rodopi; 1989. pp. 135-144.