Tinieblas Trilogy

Kiki, the son of a twice-ex-president, has inherited his father's thirst for power and the presidency. But to become president of Tinieblas takes a Machiavellian intelligence, for one must outwit not only political foes but the strong American interests. An insightful, furious, and funny depiction of twentieth-century Latin America, The Prince is an essential novel for readers of history and magical realism alike.

To fulfill his PhD requirement, Camilo Fuertes decides to write about his father León, the martyred president of Tinieblas, a small country in Latin America. As Camilo traces his family's roots, we follow León along his twisted path through delinquency, learning, lust, and bravery to his historic position of leadership. At once a powerful vision of Latin American history and a brilliant parody of the academic form-complete with endnotes-The Dissertation is the second novel in Koster's acclaimed Tinieblas trilogy, and an essential postmodern novel in the tradition of Vonnegut, Barth, and Nabokov.

R.M. Koster's Tinieblas Trilogy, which began with The Prince, a National Book Award finalist, and continued with the cult classic The Dissertation, is one of the landmarks of American literature in the second half of the twentieth century. The first major work of English-language magical realism, the trilogy has been praised by Anthony Burgess and John le Carré, among many others. Mandragon, the final novel, is the darkly uproarious story of a strange and magical creature who toys with both sexes and reads minds, and who transforms the drought-wracked land of Tinieblas.|R.M. Koster was born in Brooklyn and has lived in Panama since 1957. He is the author of five novels and one work of contemporary history, and has had parallel careers as a university professor, reporter, and political activist. His shorter work has been published in the New Republic, Harper's, and Connoisseur, among others.