EL SENOR PRESIDENTE

by M. A. Asturias ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 21, 1963

This passionate, virulent protest novel was written many years ago (from 1923 to 1932) and is based on the rule of a former Guatemalan President-Dictator. On its long delayed appearance since, it has won two prizes at intervals of decades (1952 and 1962) and considerable attention all over the continent. In strident scenes of life and death, it follows the conspiratorial activities, indictments, arrests which occur after the murder of a Colonel at the hands of a local idiot, an act misconstrued, for political purposes. While El Senor President remains for the most part in the shadow, indifferent, expedient, or drunk and surrounded by sycophants, the action moves from the Presidential Residence to the cathedral, the brothel or the jail. Miguel Angel Face, the President's adviser and favorite, ""as beautiful and wicked as Satan"", helps the General whose arrest is ordered to make his escape, and abducts his beautiful daughter Camilla with whom he falls in love. Treason and sedition seethe, and in the brawling, brutal succession of events to come all have their past in poverty, suppression and social injustice. The significance of the novel is not only in what it has to say, but in the extraordinary effects it achieves. Asturias is a remarkable writer in his use of startling images, contrasts, extremes.

Pub Date: Jan. 21, 1963

ISBN: 8489666512

Page Count: -

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1963

Categories: FICTION