Tiempos recios: a historical novel viewed through the lens of Hilary Mantel and Letters to a Young Novelist Roy C Boland Osegueda Introduction Mario Vargas Llosa’s place in the pantheon of world literature is assured. He has written nineteen novels—from La ciudad y los perros (1963)/The Time of the Hero (1966) to Tiempos recios (2019)/Hard Times. The num- ber rises to twenty if one includes an experimental novella, Los cacho- rros (1967), translated as The Cubs in The Cubs and Other Stories (1975). With the exception of Tiempos recios, all have been translated into English and numerous other languages; some of them have been adapted for the stage and/or the screen, most memorably the movie version of La fiesta del Chivo (2000)/The Feast of the Goat (2001), starring Isabella Rossellini as Urania and directed by Luis Llosa (2005). At least four of these novels are considered modern classics in the Spanish-speaking world: La ciudad y los perros, La fiesta del Chivo, Conversación en La Catedral (1969)/Conver- sation in The Cathedral (1974), and La guerra del fin del mundo (1981)/ The War of the End of the World (1997). Vargas Llosa won the Nobel Award in 2010 and he has been honoured with many other literary awards in Spain, Latin America and other parts of the world. Each one of Vargas Llosa’s novels, over a career spanning more than fifty five years, may be read and appreciated as an independent and original work of art. However, a perceptive reader can discern a consistent pattern of form (structure, technique, style, language) and content (themes, characterization, ideas) throughout his fiction. As a consequence, his oeu- 65