ABSTRACT
In his 1987 novel The Storyteller, the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa explored one of the vexing contradictions of contemporary life, namely, that the more we advance to civilize the world, the more it seems we breed intolerance and barbarism. In particular he raised the question of whether genuine storytelling and communitas are possible in advanced civilized societies. Vargas Llosa sent his narrator, who has a writing block and is suffering from ennui, on a trip to Florence where he visits an exhibit of photographs of the Machiguenga Indians in the Amazon jungle. As the narrator gazes at a photo of an hablador, or spiritual teacher, telling a story to a group of Indians, he realizes that the man looks a lot like Saul Zuratas, a friend from college, who had disappeared from his life some twenty years earlier. An outcast because of a blemish on his face and because of his mixed Jewish and Indian ancestry, Saul had developed a close relationship with the Machiguengas while doing anthropological work in the Amazon. Impressed by their spiritual dignity, he had decided to live with them and help them resist colonization.
