In the following essay, Roy Kerr examines the narrative structure of Mario Vargas Llosa's novel La cuidad y los perros (The Time of the Hero) by examining Vargas Llosa's use of the character Boa, whose narration combines generalities and specifics to reveal not only the story of the novel, but aspects of the writer himself.

All narrative has a minimal pair of essential characteristics: "the presence of a story and a story teller". Narrators assume diverse voices and perspectives in telling their tales. A useful distinction in this regard is between narration in which the narrator is present as a character, and that in which the narrator is absent from the tale. When a protagonist narrates a portion of a work of fiction, part of our notion of his character arises from the perception of him in the role of storyteller. Analysis of a fictive narrator's comments...