The President tells the story of a ruthless dictator & 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 & its damaging psychological effects on society
- from the harvest of terror to cowardice, to sycophancy, to treachery & intrigue, & the total sacrifice of human values to lust for power. Written in a language of freedom & originality, full of extraordinary symbolism, biting satire, poetry & dream sequences, with an imagination that is both lyrical & ferocious, The President is a surrealist masterpiece & one of the most influential books of the twentieth century.