Letters to a Young Novelist
by Mario Vargas Llosa

This is the curious ambiguity of fiction: it must aspire to independence knowing that its slavery to reality is inevitable, and it must suggest through sophisticated techniques an autonomy and self-sufficiency as deceptive as the melodies of an opera divorced from the instruments or the throats that voice them. (p 29)

Wise thoughts about reading and writing books by one of the twentieth-century's great novelists. This belongs on your shelf of books about books and keys to great writing from writers throughout both the ages and the world. The influences that made him a great novelist shine through as he passes his experience on to subsequent generations.

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