Peru’s national police (PNP) are planning operations to prevent the production and sale of pirate copies of “El sueño del celta“, the newest book by Peru’s acclaimed novelist and Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa, according to Interior minister Fernando Barrios.
Operations will be aimed at preventing the illegal printing of the book at formal and underground printing houses, in addition to trying to halt the sale of the pirate copy of the novel on Peru’s streets, state news agency Andina reported.
Vargas Llosa’s novel was released only a week ago, but pirated versions have already appeared on Lima’s main avenues, where street merchants are selling copies for 20-30 soles (approximately $7.15-$10.70).
While these copies are cheaper than the official version, which costs 69 soles in Lima’s book stores, some purchasers have said the pirated versions are missing about 100 pages.
“There is a constant battle against the problem of piracy, which we all know about,” said Barrios. “That’s why the interventions won’t just be against individuals, but the printing presses that massively produce [the books] in order to later sell them on corners.”
Vargas Llosa’s newest novel is based on the life of Irishman Roger Casement, who between 1903 and 1916 reported on human rights abuses by European governments and companies in the Congo and Peru’s Amazonian region, ending up in jail for his actions as a militant activist for the Irish nationalist cause.
The book was in the presses when the Peruvian author was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
