''Death in the Andes'' (''Lituma en los Andes'') is a 1993 novel by the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

-winning

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = National seal , national_motto = "Firm and Happy f ...

vian author

Mario Vargas Llosa Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquess of Vargas Llosa (born 28 March 1936), more commonly known as Mario Vargas Llosa (, ), is a Peruvian novelist, journalist, essayist and former politician, who also holds Spanish citizenship. Vargas Ll ...

. It follows the character Lituma, from '' Who Killed Palomino Molero?'', after being transferred to the rural town of Naccos.

Plot

Corporal Lituma has been transferred as punishment to the tiny Andean community of Naccos, where almost everyone besides him, his adjutant Tomás Carreño, and the vaguely threatening owners of the local bar are there as builders. Three men from the village disappear and Lituma has to investigate, alongside his heartbroken young adjutant, the only other local policeman. Was it the ''terrucos'' of the

Maoist Maoism, officially called Mao Zedong Thought by the Chinese Communist Party, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed to realise a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of Ch ...

Shining Path The Shining Path ( es, Sendero Luminoso), officially the Communist Party of Peru (, abbr. PCP), is a communist guerrilla group in Peru following Marxism–Leninism–Maoism and Gonzalo Thought. Academics often refer to the group as the Commun ...

or something even more terrible that caused these vanishings?

Themes

This novel examines the tactics and motivations of the

s, but situates their violence in the context of an older world where life is brutal and in a society which is on the very fringe of the modern world. A lot of magic realism is employed, with a great deal of references to old, "indian" spirituality, and to

pishtaco A pishtaco is a mythological boogeyman figure in the Andes region of South America, particularly in Peru and Bolivia. Some parts of the Andes refer to the pishtaco as kharisiri, or ñakaq, or lik'ichiri in the Aymara language. Legend and its e ...

s, vampires of Andean folklore.

References

External links

Book review
1997 novels Novels by Mario Vargas Llosa Novels set in Peru internal conflict in Peru {{1990s-mystery-novel-stub