All 10,000 copies of a novel dealing with life under the regime of Dominican dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo were sold out last week. The first Dominican printing of La Fiesta del Chivo (The Goat’s Party), by Peruvian writer and one-time presidential aspirant, Mario Vargas Llosa, disappeared from bookstore shelves in a single day. The book, in which factual episodes and real people – some still living – are treated with literary license, has caused a sensation here and has become a frequent topic on TV talk shows and commentaries. Enough survivors of Trujillo’s reign are extant to stimulate controversy as to the historical verisimilitude of the various incidents portrayed. A second printing has begun and waiting lists have been started, according to Lourdes de Cuello, editor-in-chief of Editora Taller, the SD printing house commissioned with distribution of the Vargas Llosa work. Trujillo, who kept the country under his thumb for more than 30 years, was assassinated in May, 1961.
