They meet when they’re teenagers. She’s the essence of coquettishness. He falls in love “like a calf”. She leaves him repeatedly. She comes back, live with him for some time, then get a man with more money. She teases him about his lack of ambition, his love for her, his earnestness. She breaks his heart as carelessly as she does with everyone in her way. She’s the bad girl.

Mario Vargas Llosa, one of South America.s greatest authors, has always been fascinated with Emma Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. The Bad Girl is inspired by this classical. However, this woman is much stronger than Bovary.

Ricardo Somocurcio meets “Lily” in Lima where she claims to be from Chile. He meets her again in Paris, where she poses as a communist, “Comrade Arlette”. As a wife of a high- ranking UNESCO official and even as a mistress of a Japanese mobster he meets and loses her. Every time he believes he knows her, she slips away. He can’t forget her. She causes unbelievable suffering, but also immensely joy.

This book is so much more than a love story. It’s an epic from the fifties until present time, full of interesting characters, of which “The Bad Girl” is only one. Communist, gangsters, bureaucrats, intellectuals are all depicted in an interesting light. Strange, impossible events in the book are made believable. Despite the often tragic theme, this book is written with humor and forgiveness. The bad girl, which comes across as completely without scruples and sometimes half crazy, is never judged. Our protagonist, Ricardo never hates her, and her outrages ways is described in a loving, humorous light. You become to respect, even admire “The Bad Girl”. Quite an accomplishment.