Vargas Llosa’s The Time of the Hero. The Novel as Social Critique

Offered through the Cátedra Mario Vargas Llosa and the Department of Classical and Modern Languages and Literatures at The City College, CUNY, with the cooperation of the Instituto Cervantes, this one (1) credit seminar focuses on Mario Vargas Llosa’s La ciudad y los perros (1962) [The Time of the Hero]. Taught by internationally acclaimed Bolivian writer Edmundo Paz Soldán and Distinguished Professor Raquel Chang-Rodríguez, the seminar will explore how Vargas Llosa uses formal elements in a narrative to confront society, its institutions, and the basic code of “becoming a man” in a patriarchal society. It will examine how the idea of totalization in the novel is conveyed through networks (friends and family, the military institute, the city and the nation).