''The War of the End of the World'' ( es, La guerra del fin del mundo) is a

1981 Events January * January 1 ** Greece enters the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union. ** Palau becomes a self-governing territory. * January 10 – Salvadoran Civil War: The FMLN launches its first major offensiv ...

novel written by

Peruvian Peruvians ( es, peruanos) are the citizens of Peru. There were Andean and coastal ancient civilizations like Caral, which inhabited what is now Peruvian territory for several millennia before the Spanish conquest of Peru, Spanish conquest in th ...

novelist

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 is a fictionalized account of the

War of Canudos The War of Canudos (, , 1895–1898) was a conflict between the First Brazilian Republic and the residents of Canudos in the northeastern state of Bahia. It was waged in the aftermath of the abolition of slavery in Brazil (1888) and the overt ...

conflict in late 19th-century

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

Plot summary

In the midst of the economic decline — following drought and the end of slavery — in the province of

Bahia Bahia ( , , ; meaning "bay") is one of the 26 states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region of the country. It is the fourth-largest Brazilian state by population (after São Paulo, Minas Gerais, and Rio de Janeiro) and the 5th-largest b ...

in Northeastern Brazil, the poor of the backlands are attracted by the charismatic figure and simple religious teachings of Antonio Conselheiro, called "The Counselor", who preaches that the end of the world is imminent and that the political chaos that surrounds the collapse of the

Empire of Brazil The Empire of Brazil was a 19th-century state that broadly comprised the territories which form modern Brazil and (until 1828) Uruguay. Its government was a representative parliamentary constitutional monarchy under the rule of Emperors Dom ...

and its replacement by a republic is the work of the devil. Seizing a

fazenda A ''fazenda'' () is a plantation found throughout Brazil during the colonial period (16th - 18th centuries). They were concentrated primarily in the northeastern region, where sugar was produced in the ''engenhos'', expanding during the 19th ...

in an area blighted by economic decline at Canudos the Counselor's followers build a large town and repeatedly defeat growing military expeditions designed to remove them. As the state's violence against them increases, they too turn increasingly violent, even seizing the modern weapons deployed against them. In an epic final clash, a whole army is sent to extirpate Canudos and instigates a terrible and brutal battle with the poor while politicians of the old order see their world destroyed in the conflagration.

Analysis

It is generally believed that Vargas Llosa's three milestone novels are ''La Ciudad y Los Perros'' (''

The Time of the Hero ''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 ...

''), ''La Casa Verde'' (''

The Green House ''The Green House'' (Original title: ''La Casa Verde'') is the second novel by the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, published in 1966. The novel is set over a period of forty years (from the early part of the 20th century to the 1960s) in tw ...

'') and ''Conversación en la Catedral'' (''

Conversation in the Cathedral ''Conversation in The Cathedral'' (original title: ''Conversación en La catedral'') is a 1969 novel by Spanish-Peruvian writer and essayist Mario Vargas Llosa, translated by Gregory Rabassa. One of Vargas Llosa's major works, it is a portrayal of ...

''), though many critics agree that ''The War of the End of the World'' should also be included among these three. The author is famously known for considering this his most accomplished novel — an opinion shared by the Chilean novelist

Roberto Bolaño Roberto Bolaño Ávalos (; 28 April 1953 – 15 July 2003) was a Chilean novelist, short-story writer, poet and essayist. In 1999, Bolaño won the Rómulo Gallegos Prize for his novel ''Los detectives salvajes'' ('' The Savage Detectives ...

, as well as the American critic

Harold Bloom Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was described as "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking worl ...

, who includes the novel in what he calls the "

Western canon The Western canon is the body of high culture literature, music, philosophy, and works of art that are highly valued in the West; works that have achieved the status of classics. However, not all these works originate in the Western world, ...

". As he did later on with ''La Fiesta Del Chivo'' (''

The Feast of the Goat ''The Feast of the Goat'' ( es, La Fiesta del Chivo, 2000) is a novel by the Peruvian Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Mario Vargas Llosa. The book is set in the Dominican Republic and portrays the assassination of Dominican dictator Rafael Tru ...

''), Vargas Llosa tackles a huge number of characters and stories caught during a time of strife, interweaving these in way that gives us a picture of what it was to live in those times.

Characters

* Antônio Conselheiro * The Little Blessed One * The Lion of Natuba: the counselor’s personal scribe. Deformed individual with hair that resembles a lion’s mane. * João Abade (Abbot João) * The Dwarf * Father Joaquim * Baron de Canabrava * Pajeú * Rufino: husband of Jurema. * Galileo Gall * Maria Quadrado * Colonel Moreira César: fierce Republican loyalist. Anti-monarchist. Commander of the 7th Regiment. * Jurema: wife of Rufino * The Near-Sighted Journalist * João Grande (Big João) * Pires Ferreira * Antônio Vilanova * Antônio o Fogueteiro

References

1981 novels Novels by Mario Vargas Llosa Novels set in Bahia Fiction set in the 1890s Seix Barral books {{1980s-novel-stub