The Bad Girl

Vargas Llosa's beguiling new novel, The Bad Girl, is fundamentally a love story between Ricardo Somocurcio and the unpredictable Bad Girl, Lily. Ricardo’s fascination with Lily lasts a lifetime and takes the reader on an unpredictable journey across their emotional landscape – from their teenage years growing up in Lima during the 1950s through to her wildly different days in Paris as Comrade Arlette, an activist en route to Cuba.
She reappears again as the wife of a UNESCO official and again as the mistress of a sinister Japanese businessman – and yet despite her icy and distant behaviour, Ricardo is destined to worship her.