The President tells the story of a ruthless dictator and his schemes to dispose of a political adversary in an unnamed country usually identified as Guatemala. Drawing on his experience as a journalist writing under repressive conditions, Miguel Angel Asturias provides a blazing indictment of totalitarian government and its damaging psychological effects on society - from the harvest of terror to cowardice, to sycophancy, to treachery and intrigue, and the total sacrifice of human values to lust for power.
Written in a language of freedom and originality, full of extraordinary symbolism, biting satire, poetry and dream sequences, with an imagination that is both lyrical and ferocious, The President is a surrealist masterpiece and one of the most influential books of the twentieth century.

'One of Latin America's greatest novels' Dorian Jackson
'A phenomenal work that will never date' Gabriela Mistral
'Asturias leaves no doubt about what it is like to be tortured, or what it is like to work for a man who is both omnipotent and depraved' Times Literary Supplement
9781474611176
£9.99 [W&N classics logo]