Mario Vargas Llosa is a laureate of the so-called “Spanish Nobel” - the Cervantes Prize, the international awards of Romulo Gallegos and Grinzane Cavour, PEN/Nabokov and many others. His books immediately became world literary sensations.

The novel “A Word of Praise to the Stepmother” (1988) confused both readers and critics with its unexpectedly frank spicy eroticism. Sophisticated writing, poetically and sensually glorifying and elevating intimate and even base moments, turns out to be more significant than a banal plot scheme. Therefore, the destroyed harmony of the “ideal” family is replenished by the highest harmony of the natural principle, and the defeat of the individual is the triumph of the unity of flesh and spirit.