La Fiesta del Chivo

Known in English as The Feast of the Goat, this novel returns to the Dominican Republic and the long dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. It moves between several strands: a woman who comes back to the country after decades abroad, the dictator's last day in power, and the men around him who plot against him.

Through these threads the book shows how fear and flattery kept one man's rule in place, and how it damaged private lives long after. It mixes real historical figures with invented ones, and is often counted among the author's strongest political novels.