Faber to publish the final novel from Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa

Faber has announced I Give You My Silence, the final novel from Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa, who died in April 2025.

Editor Aisling Brennan acquired UK & Commonwealth and EU rights (excluding Canada) from Maribel Luque at Agencia Literaria Carmen Balcells. Publication is scheduled for 13th August 2026 and the novel is translated by Adrian Nathan West.

The synopsis reads: "One evening, Toño Azpilcueta, a Peruvian folk music journalist, witnesses a performance that changes his life. Toño becomes obsessed with hearing the virtuoso guitarist Lalo Molfino play again, but the next he learns that Molfino is dead.

"So begins a quest to uncover the story of this unforgettable musician. Toño tracks down the priest who rescued Molfino from a rubbish heap as a child and raised him, the musicians who played with him and the girl who claimed to love him. Toño decides that he will write a book that will not only immortalise the hero of the Creole waltz but will establish the music he loved as a unifying symbol for his fractured country. But the more Toño writes, the more he struggles to keep control of his story. As his savings dwindle and his paranoia rises, it becomes clear that writing a masterpiece is more complicated and consuming than he had ever imagined."

Brennan said: "Faber has been the proud publisher of Mario Vargas Llosa’s epic, exhilarating and wildly enjoyable novels for over 40 years. While it brings me great sadness that I Give You My Silence is the final novel we will read from this titan of literature, I feel incredibly privileged to be introducing this charming and thought-provoking tale to UK readers, and am fortified by the thought of all who will continue to discover his magical writing for many, many decades to come."

The author was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010. He also won the Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world’s most distinguished literary honour.