The Dream of the Celt: A Novel (55 page)

Madrid, April 19, 2010

ALSO BY MARIO VARGAS LLOSA

The Cubs and Other Stories
The Time of the Hero
The Green House
Captain Pantoja and the Special Service
Conversation in the Cathedral
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter
The War at the End of the World
The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta
The Perpetual Orgy
Who Killed Palomino Molero?
The Storyteller
In Praise of the Stepmother
A Fish in the Water
Death in the Andes
Making Waves
The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto
The Feast of the Goat
Letters to a Young Novelist
The Language of Passion
The Way to Paradise
The Bad Girl
Touchstones

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It would not have been possible to write this novel without the collaboration, conscious or unconscious, of many people who helped me on my journeys through the Congo and Amazonia and in Ireland, the United States, Belgium, Peru, Germany, and Spain, sent me books and articles, facilitated my access to archives and libraries, gave me testimonies, advice, and above all, their encouragement and friendship when I felt myself weakening in the face of the difficulties of the project I had in hand. Among them, I want in particular to thank Verónica Ramírez Muro for her invaluable help during my visit to Ireland and in the preparation of the manuscript. I alone am responsible for the deficiencies of this book, but without these people, its eventual successes would have been impossible. Many thanks to:

In the Congo: Colonel Gaspar Barrabino, Ibrahima Coly, Ambassador Félix Costales Artieda, Ambassador Miguel Fernández Palacios, Raffaella Gentilini, Asuka Imai, Chance Kayijuka, Placide-Clement Mananga, Pablo Marco, Father Barumi Minavi, Javier Sancho Más, Karl Steinecker, R. Tharcisse Synga Ngundu de Minova, Juan Carlos Tomasi, Xisco Villalonga, Emile Zola, and the
Poètes du renouveau
of Lwemba.

In Belgium: David van Reybrouck.

In Amazonia: Alberto Chirif, Father Joaquín García Sánchez, and Roger Rumrill.

In Ireland: Christopher Brooke, Anne and Patrick Casement, Hugh Casement, Tom Desmond, Jeff Dudgeon, Sean Joseph, Ciara Kerrigan, Jit Ming, Angus Mitchell, Griffin Murray, Helen O’Carroll, Séamas O’Siochain, Donal J. O’Sullivan, Sean Quinlan, Orla Sweeney, and the staff of the National Library of Ireland and the National Photographic Archive.

In Peru: Rosario de Bedoya, Nancy Herrera, Gabriel Meseth, Lucía Muñoz-Nájar, Hugo Neira, Juan Ossio, Fernando Carvallo, and the staff of the Biblioteca Nacional.

In New York: Bob Dumont and the staff of the New York Public Library.

In London: John Hemming, Hugh Thomas, Jorge Orlando Melo, and the staff of the British Library.

In Spain: Fiorella Battistini, Javier Reverte, Nadine Tchamlesso, Pepe Verdes, Anteon Yeregui, and Muskilda Zancada.

Héctor Abad Faciolince, Ovidio Lagos, and Edmundo Murray.

Copyright © 2010 by Mario Vargas Llosa

Translation copyright © 2012 by Edith Grossman
All rights reserved

Originally published in Spanish in 2010 by Alfaguara Ediciones, Spain, as
El Sueño del Celta

Published in the United States by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Farrar, Straus and Giroux
18 West 18th Street, New York 10011

www.fsgbooks.com

Designed by Jonathan D. Lippincott

eISBN 9781466816169

First eBook Edition : May 2012

First American edition, 2012

An excerpt from
The Dream of the Celt
originally appeared, in slightly different form, in
Granta
.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Vargas Llosa, Mario, 1936–

[Sueño del Celta. English]

The dream of the Celt / Mario Vargas Llosa ; translated from the

Spanish by Edith Grossman.—1st American ed.

p. cm.

“Originally published in Spanish in 2010 by Alfaguara Ediciones, Spain, as El sueño del Celta.”

ISBN 978-0-374-14346-6 (alk. paper)
I. Grossman, Edith, 1936–II. Title.

PQ8498.32.A65 S8413 2012

863’.64—dc23

2011052181