Nobel Prize-winning Guatemalan author Miguel ngel Asturias’s masterpiece of authoritarian excess–about an egomaniacal dictator and his schemes to dispose of a political adversary–in the first new English translation in nearly sixty years, and featuring a foreword by Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa>

A Penguin Classic

The story of a dictator scheming against a rival in an unnamed Latin American country usually identified as Guatemala, Mr. President was banned for many years in Guatemala and has been acclaimed for portraying both a totalitarian government and its damaging psychological effects. Drawing from his experiences as a journalist writing under repressive conditions, Miguel ngel Asturias employs such literary devices as satire to convey the government’s transgressions and surrealistic dream sequences to demonstrate the police state’s impact on the individual psyche. His stance against all forms of injustice in Guatemala caused critics to view the author as a compassionate spokesperson for the oppressed. My work, Asturias promised when he accepted the Nobel Prize, will continue to reflect the voice of the people, gathering their myths and popular beliefs and at the same time seeking to give birth to a universal consciousness of Latin American problems.

Nobel Prize-winning Guatemalan author Miguel ngel Asturias’s masterpiece of authoritarian excess–about an egomaniacal dictator and his schemes to dispose of a political adversary–in the first new English translation in nearly sixty years, and featuring a foreword by Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa>

A Penguin Classic

The story of a dictator scheming against a rival in an unnamed Latin American country usually identified as Guatemala, Mr. President was banned for many years in Guatemala and has been acclaimed for portraying both a totalitarian government and its damaging psychological effects. Drawing from his experiences as a journalist writing under repressive conditions, Miguel ngel Asturias employs such literary devices as satire to convey the government’s transgressions and surrealistic dream sequences to demonstrate the police state’s impact on the individual psyche. His stance against all forms of injustice in Guatemala caused critics to view the author as a compassionate spokesperson for the oppressed. My work, Asturias promised when he accepted the Nobel Prize, will continue to reflect the voice of the people, gathering their myths and popular beliefs and at the same time seeking to give birth to a universal consciousness of Latin American problems.