The Feast of the Goat revisits the last days of Rafael Trujillo’s dictatorship in the Dominican Republic and the long shadow it casts. Vargas Llosa braids together three strands: Trujillo and his inner circle in the final hours of his rule, the conspirators preparing to assassinate him, and Urania Cabral, who returns to Santo Domingo decades later to confront what the regime did to her and her family. The novel is tightly constructed and unsparing, interested not just in political events but in how terror seeps into bodies, language, and memory.

WHY WE PICKED IT
Because it is one of Vargas Llosa’s major political novels and a landmark of contemporary Latin American fiction in translation. The Feast of the Goat is a powerful choice for readers who want historical fiction that looks directly at dictatorship, complicity, and the cost of survival.

DETAILS
• Author: Mario Vargas Llosa
• Translator: Edith Grossman
• Publisher: Picador USA
• Publication Date: November 9, 2002
• Format: Paperback
• ISBN: 9780312420277
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