The Time of the Hero

Vargas Llosa's first novel maps a cruel adolescence onto real ground: the Leoncio Prado military academy on the fog-bound cliffs of La Perla in Callao, and the Lima the cadets slip out to on leave. The map runs from the barracks above the Pacific across the bay to middle-class Miraflores and bohemian Barranco, down to the Costa Verde, and back to the working-class streets of Callao the boys came from.

The Jaguar

The Leoncio Prado Military Academy, La Perla

Part One

Almost the whole novel is set inside this state boarding academy, where boys from across Peru's classes and regions are drilled into a brutal hierarchy. A stolen chemistry exam and a pilfered rifle bolt set the plot moving; the cadets' own code, enforced by a gang who call themselves the Circle, governs everything the officers do not see.

Part One

explicit The academy is named in the novel and is a real, still-operating institution; the coordinates mark its campus in La Perla, Callao, where Vargas Llosa was himself a cadet.

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Alberto, the Poet

Miraflores, Alberto's neighbourhood

Part One

On leave, Alberto, the cadet nicknamed the Poet for the stories and letters he sells to the others, returns to comfortable Miraflores. His flirtation with a neighbourhood girl and his walks through these quiet streets stand in flat contrast to the violence he goes back to behind the academy walls.

Part One

explicit Miraflores is named as the middle-class district Alberto comes from; the novel moves through its streets without fixing one address, so this marks Parque Kennedy at the district's heart.

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Alberto, the Poet

Barranco, by the sea

Part One

The bohemian, faded-genteel district just south of Miraflores is part of the cadets' world beyond the gates, a place of cinemas, girls and idle Sunday afternoons. For boys locked most of the week in the barracks, an outing to these streets above the sea is a taste of ordinary freedom.

Part One

explicit Barranco is named among the seaside districts the cadets frequent on leave; no single spot is fixed, so this marks the Puente de los Suspiros at the heart of the old bohemian quarter.

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