An English-language translation of the MLA Katherine Singer Kovacs Prize and LASA Premio Iberoamericano award-winning Spanish-language book, Arguedas/ Vargas Llosa. Dilemas y ensamblajes, Mabel Moraña offers the first comparative study of two of contemporary Latin America's central literary figures: Mario Vargas Llosa and Jose Maria Arguedas.  This book provides a groundbreaking analysis of the most prominent writers of contemporary Peru, in which literary works and cultural performances are illuminated through the categories and propositions of postcolonial theory. The study entails a discussion of thematic choices, representational strategies and political contexts, as well as a daring analysis of Vargas Llosa's Nobel Prize and Arguedas' suicide as paradigmatic instances in these authors' cultural and ideological development. Topics such as indigenismo, archaism, modernity, otherness, popular culture, and cultural diversity traverse through this book, which constitutes, more than a traditional academic exercise, a critical intervention in the field of Latin American studies.