The Time of the Hero (Original title: La ciudad y los perros, literally "The City and the Dogs") is a 1963 novel by Peruvian writer and Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa. It was Vargas Llosa's first novel and is set among the cadets at the Leoncio Prado Military Academy in Lima, which he attended as a teenager. The novel portrays the school so scathingly that its leadership burned many copies and condemned the book as Ecuadorian propaganda against Peru.[1]
It is a story about adolescence and young males transition to manhood, but is also described to portray a microcosm of the Peruvian society. It features themes such as masculinity, hierarchy, secrecy and the military.[3]
Plot summary
The story concerns the theft of an examination paper by the cadet Cava carried out under orders from Jaguar, the brutal leader of a group of cadets called The Circle. The theft is reported by a lowly cadet called The Slave whom Jaguar consequently murders during military maneuvers. Concerned for the school’s reputation, the administrators choose to ignore further evidence of Jaguar’s guilt.
Background
The novel is based on Vargas Llosa's own experiences of Leoncio Prado Military Academy, which he attended as a teenager in the early 1950s. He worked on the manuscript for the novel while he was living in France and it was published as his first novel in 1962.[3]
Magnarelli, Sharon (May 1981), "La ciudad y los perros: Women and Language", Hispania, 64 (2), American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese: 215–225, doi:10.2307/341856, JSTOR341856.