{"product_id":"2026200013067-secondhand-in-praise-of-the-stepmother","title":"In Praise Of The Stepmother","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: Worn\/faded, no tears\u003cbr\u003ePages: Good\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA sensuous and subversive fable from one of Latin America's most celebrated literary giants, In Praise of the Stepmother draws readers into the gilded world of Don Rigoberto, a prosperous Peruvian executive whose life is a monument to refined pleasure — art, literature, and the ardent love of his beautiful new wife, Lucrecia. The novel's central tension coils around Fonchito, Don Rigoberto's angelic young son, whose innocent façade conceals a calculating and dangerously seductive will that quietly dismantles the couple's paradise from within.\n\nMario Vargas Llosa, the Nobel Prize-winning Peruvian author, constructs this novella as a daring meditation on desire, beauty, and the perilous nature of the erotic imagination, weaving the narrative together with ekphrastic passages inspired by masterworks of Western painting — from Jordaens to Fra Angelico. Translated with elegant precision by Helen Lane, the English edition faithfully preserves Llosa's lush, ironic prose, which at once celebrates sensuality and exposes its capacity for destruction. A work that lingers long after the final page, it leaves one asking: can beauty ever be truly innocent?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49203277070555,"sku":"2026200013067-SECONDHAND","price":20.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/a6334127-c72c-4f9e-820a-ab5e3212640e.png?v=1788147258","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026200013067-secondhand-in-praise-of-the-stepmother","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}