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Pantaleon Pantoja, a recently promoted army captain, is entrusted with a top secret mission to establish a prostitution service for the Armed Forces of Peru. As a faithful soldier, Pantaleon transfers to Iquitos in the middle of the jungle, to carry out his mission. His enthusiasm, however, endangers the very scheme he has put in motion. Thus begins this novel, which was published in 1973 and later made into a film. Vargas Llosa uses this theme to highlight the hypocrisy of so-called exemplary institutions and of the oldest profession in the world. The eternal debate between truth and lie, necessity and virtue, and the pernicious consequences of rigorous adherence to duty are the fundamental values of this satirical and extraordinary novel.