from power, there was reason to believe that the latter may be planning a comeback. Initially I thought that this was pure fiction (although I was already wondering, at the outset, why Mario Vargas Llosa--a Peruvian--would place the setting of his work not in Peru but in Mexico). Llosa, however, won the most recent Nobel prize for literature (long overdue, many say, except that Llosa--who once ran and lost the Peruvian presidential race--has had bad politics) and midway through this book I read in a newspaper article about him that this novel was based on a true historical event. There was really that place called Canudos where the Counselor and his followers established their own city. The men of the Republic looked at Canudos and the Counselor with alarm. They suspected that they are being supported, secretly, by the Monarchists--the enemies of the Republic out to restore the Empire. Inside this explosive brew of religion and politics Llosa weaves his stories, going from one character to another, not only within Canudos, but within the quarters of the Monarchists and Republicans as well. He TAKES you inside the pages of the book, clamps the book down, and prevents your escape from his merciless story-telling. This morning, I was driving at around 7:00 a.m. and was blinded by the rising sun. I squinted at that orange orb rising from the horizon and I thought: this was the same hot sun which gave the Counselor's fighters--armed only with arrows, machetes, knives and a