The Way to Paradise by Mario Vargas Llosa

translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer

• Biblioteca Luis Angel Arango, Bogota, Colombia
• Jafet Library- American University of Beirut, Lebanon
• Wojewodzka i Miejska Biblioteca Publiczna im Marszalka J.Pilsudskiego, Lodz, Poland

In 1844, Flora Tristan embarked on a tour of France to campaign for workers' and women's rights. In 1891, her grandson set sail for Tahiti, determined to escape civilisation and seek out inspiration to paint his primitive masterpieces. Flora died before her grandson was born, but their travels and obsessions unravel side by side in this absorbing novel.
Flora, the illegitimate child of a wealthy Peruvian father and French mother grows up in poverty, and after fleeing a brutal husband, journeys to Peru to demand her inheritance. On her return, she makes her name as a popular writer and a champion of the dispossessed, setting herself the arduous task of touring the French countryside to recruit members for her Workers' Union.
Paul, struggling, profligate painter and stubborn visionary, abandons his wife and five children for life in the South Seas, where his dreams of paradise are poisoned by poverty, syphilis and the stifling forces of French colonialism, though he has his pick of teenage Tahitian lovers and paints some of his greatest works.
The Way to Paradise is a study of passion, ambition and the determined pursuit of greatness in the face of illness, death and conservative forces.

Mario Vargas Llosa was born in 1936 in Peru. With novels including The War of the End of the World, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter and most recently The Feast of the Goat, he has established an international reputation as one of Latin America's most important authors.