The Return of Mario Vargas Llosa (Aguirre, Carlos, and Kristina Buynova. Five Days in Moscow: Mario Vargas Llosa’s Visit to the Soviet Union (1968). Moscow: Litfact Publ., 2025. 240 p.)

This article discusses the Russian-language version of K. Buynova and C. Aguirre’s book Five Days in Moscow: Mario Vargas Llosa’s Visit to the Soviet Union (1968) (2025). The book debunks the myth, actively promoted by Vargas Llosa himself in his later years, that it was his visit to the USSR in May 1968 that caused him to turn away from socialism. The book is based on new and previously little-known materials, some of which are published in the appendix. Of particular interest to Latin American scholars of various specializations (from literary scholars and linguists to historians and sociologists) are the appendices, which compile all the information about Vargas Llosa’s presence in the USSR in the mid-1960s including the correspondence between the Foreign Commission of the Soviet Writers’ Union and the publishing house Seix Barral, Vargas Llosa’s correspondence with Soviet translators and officials. Worthy of special mention are the materials dedicated to the publication of Vargas Llosa’s first novel, The Time of the Hero, in the USSR (preface, review, comparative analysis of different translations).