The President

The President

Guatemalan diplomat and writer Miguel Angel Asturias (1899â€“1974) began this award-winning work while still a law student. It is a story of a ruthless dictator and his schemes to dispose of a political adversary in an unnamed Latin American country usually identified as Guatemala. The book 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, Asturias employs such literary devices as satire to convey the governmentâ€™s transgressions and surrealistic dream sequences to demonstrate the police stateâ€™s impact on the individual psyche. Asturiasâ€™s stance against all forms of injustice in Guatemala caused critics to view the author as a compassionate spokesperson for the oppressed. My work,â€ Asturias promised when he accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature, â€œwill 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.â€

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