Vargas Llosa analyzes in Conversation in the Cathedral the corrupting influence of the Manuel Odria dictatorship on all sectors of Peruvian society from 1948 to 1956. He incisively portrays wealthy industrialists, impoverished civil servants, leftist students, newspapermen,employees andwhom survivevironment by workers, domestic prostitutes, many of in this tyrannical en giving unquestioning support to the dictator. In order to gain such acquiescence, the dictator resorts to a cynical system of intimidation using the secret police and intelligence to blackmail his opposition and to ferret out any possible subversive elements. His minister of internal affairs supports a brothel where prominent politicians and industrialists participate in perverse sexual practices and reveal their clandestine activities to seductive conniving prostitutes.

The complicity of the wealthy class is also explored. Afraid to lose their position of economic and political power, the oligarchs and the new industrialists go along with the repressive measures of...