Captain Pantoja and The Special Service

Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (1973) (orig. Spanish Pantaleón y las visitadoras) is a relatively short comedic novel by acclaimed Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa.

The story takes place in the Peruvian department of Amazonas, where troops from the Peruvian Army are attended to by sex workers, referred to euphemistically in the Spanish juridical term visitador, meaning “auditors”, "inspectors" or "examiners".

According to the author himself, the work is based on facts, as he was able to verify them in 1958 and in 1962 when he travelled to the Peruvian jungle. It deals with Captain Pantoja's (from whom the novel’s title takes its name) astonishing efficiency campaign to provide prostitution services for quelling the sexual desires of the Peruvian army soldiers stationed in what is portrayed as an incredibly aphrodisiacal Amazon jungle.

Read more about Captain Pantoja And The Special Service:  Plot, Novel Characters, Film Adaptations

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