"Long Talk in the Bar" is one of the most creatively ambitious works of Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa. It may also be an excellent example of how this contemporary writer uses literature to think politically. The novel is set during the dictatorship of General Odelia (1948-1956). It tells the story of the moral collapse of Santiago Zavala, a young man from a middle-class family, and how intellectuals with literary dreams gradually gave up on their ideals under the control of the corrupt power of the dictatorship. The novel comprehensively describes the situation in Lima at that time and shows the whole picture of Peruvian society.
