Censorship of Mario Vargas Llosa's novel "The Time of the Hero" in the Soviet Union (Soviet Russia and Georgia)

Abstract

In Mario Vargas Llosa's first novel, "The Time of the Hero", the author describes his adventures and experiences as a Peruvian. Vargas Llosa exposes the vices, racial and class prejudices, machismo and corruption of Peruvian society during his adolescence. He clearly depicts Peru through his eyes, his real face. The work fought against Francoist censorship for almost a year, and was eventually published in Spain with only eight changes. Novel censorship has long been the object of research in many scholarly works in Spain. In this article, we will discuss the censorship of the novel in Soviet Russia and, consequently, in Georgia. The censorship of the USSR was much harsher than the Francoist censorship of the work. The article analyzes the changes made to the work by the USSR censorship and the consequences of these changes.