Ricardo, at an early age, sees his life-long dream fulfilled: to live in Paris. But an encounter with a past love will change everything. The young girl, adventurer, pragmatic, wicked, calculating, and mischievous, will drag him out of his small world of ambitions. This is the story of the intimate love that occupies more than three decades of Ricardo s life, and it is also a fascinating tale traveling through Europe, South America, and Japan. Starring in the backdrop are Peru s history from 1950 to 1987 and its swinging from democracy to dictatorship; Paris in the sixties and its great philosophers Sartre and Camus; the decade of the 70s in London, the birth of a new culture, drugs, music, hippies, freedom of love; Japan"s big dealer lords, and, finally, Spain halfway through the 80s. Creating an admirable tension between comedy and tragedy, Mario Vargas Llosa plays with reality and fiction to release a story in which love presents itself as indefinable, owner of a thousand faces, just like the mischievous girl. Passion and distance, chance and destiny, pain and pleasure. Which is the true face of love? Description in Spanish: Cual es el verdadero rostro del amor? Ricardo ve cumplido, a una edad muy temprana, el sueno que en su Lima natal alimento desde que tenia uso de razon: vivir en Paris. Pero el reencuentro con un amor de adolescencia lo cambiara todo. La joven, inconformista, aventurera, pragmatica e inquieta, lo arrastrara fuera del pequeno mundo de sus ambiciones. Testigos de epocas convulsas y florecientes en ciudades como Londres, Paris, Tokio o Madrid, ambos personajes veran sus vidas entrelazarse sin llegar a coincidir del todo. Entre lo comico y lo tragico, la realidad y la ficcion, Travesuras de la nina mala logra retratar al amor indefinible, dueno de mil caras, como la nina mala. Pasion y distancia, azar y destino, dolor y disfrute.