El Señor Presidente
Encyclopedia
is a 1946 novel written in Spanish by Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

–winning Guatemala
Guatemala
Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...

n writer and diplomat Miguel Ángel Asturias
Miguel Ángel Asturias
Miguel Ángel Asturias Rosales was a Nobel Prize–winning Guatemalan poet, novelist, playwright, journalist and diplomat...

 (1899–1974). A landmark text in Latin American literature
Latin American literature
Latin American literature consists of the oral and written literature of Latin America in several languages, particularly in Spanish, Portuguese, and indigenous languages of the Americas. It rose to particular prominence globally during the second half of the 20th century, largely due to the...

, explores the nature of political dictatorship
Dictatorship
A dictatorship is defined as an autocratic form of government in which the government is ruled by an individual, the dictator. It has three possible meanings:...

 and its effects on society. Asturias makes early use of a literary technique now known as magic realism
Magic realism
Magic realism or magical realism is an aesthetic style or genre of fiction in which magical elements blend with the real world. The story explains these magical elements as real occurrences, presented in a straightforward manner that places the "real" and the "fantastic" in the same stream of...

. One of the most notable works of the dictator novel
Dictator novel
The dictator novel is a genre of Latin American literature that challenges the role of the dictator in Latin American society. The theme of caudillismo—the régime of a charismatic caudillo, a political strongman—is addressed by examining the relationships between power, dictatorship,...

 genre, developed from an earlier Asturias short story, written to protest social injustice in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake in the author's home town.

Although does not explicitly identify its setting as early twentieth-century Guatemala, the novel's title character was inspired by the 1898–1920 presidency of Manuel Estrada Cabrera
Manuel Estrada Cabrera
Manuel José Estrada Cabrera was President of Guatemala from 8 February 1898 to 15 April 1920.Manuel Estrada forcibly took the presidency after the assassination of José María Reina. The Guatemalan cabinet called an emergency meeting to appoint a new successor, but declined to invite the General...

. Asturias began writing the novel in the 1920s and finished it in 1933, but the strict censorship policies of Guatemalan dictatorial governments delayed its publication for thirteen years.

The character of the President rarely appears in the story but Asturias creates a number of other characters to show the terrible effects of living under a dictatorship. His use of dream imagery, onomatopoeia, simile
Simile
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two different things, usually by employing the words "like", "as". Even though both similes and metaphors are forms of comparison, similes indirectly compare the two ideas and allow them to remain distinct in spite of their similarities, whereas...

, and repetition of particular phrases, combined with a discontinuous structure, which consists of abrupt changes of style and viewpoint, springs from surrealist
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....

 and ultraist
Ultraist movement
The Ultraist movement was a literary movement born in Spain in 1918, with the declared intention of opposing Modernismo, which had dominated Spanish poetry since the end of the 19th century....

 influences. The style of influenced a generation of Latin American authors. The themes of Asturias's novel, such as the inability to tell reality apart from dreams, the power of the written word in the hands of authorities, and the alienation produced by tyranny, center around the experience of living under a dictatorship.

On its eventual publication in Mexico in 1946, quickly met with critical acclaim. In 1967, Asturias received the Nobel Prize in Literature
Nobel Prize in Literature
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...

 for his entire body of work. This international acknowledgment was celebrated throughout Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

, where it was seen as a recognition of the region's literature as a whole. Since then, has been adapted for the screen and theater.

Background

In a 1970 interview, the German critic Gunter W. Lorenz asked Miguel Ángel Asturias why he began to write and the novelist replied:

This experience, at the age of 18, led Asturias to write "" ("The Political Beggars"), an unpublished short story that would later develop into his first novel, . Asturias began writing in 1922, while he was still a law student in Guatemala. He moved to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 in 1923, where he studied anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...

 at the Sorbonne
Sorbonne
The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...

 under George Raymond. While living in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, he continued to work on the book and also associated with members of the Surrealist movement
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....

 as well as fellow future Latin American writers such as Arturo Uslar Pietri
Arturo Uslar Pietri
Arturo Uslar Pietri , was a Venezuelan intellectual, lawyer, journalist, writer, television producer and politician.- Life :...

 and the Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

n Alejo Carpentier
Alejo Carpentier
Alejo Carpentier y Valmont was a Cuban novelist, essayist, and musicologist who greatly influenced Latin American literature during its famous "boom" period. Born in Lausanne, Switzerland, Carpentier grew up in Havana, Cuba; and despite his European birthplace, Carpentier strongly self-identified...

. The novel was completed in 1933, shortly before Asturias returned to Guatemala.

Even though was written in France and is set in an unnamed Latin American country, governed by an unnamed President in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, there is still plenty of support linking the novel to the Estrada Cabrera era in Guatemala. For example, as critic Jack Himelblau explains, "Asturias [...] wrote his novel primarily with his compatriots in mind, who, undoubtedly, had lived through the tyranny of Estrada Cabrera from 1898 to 1920." Manuel Estrada Cabrera
Manuel Estrada Cabrera
Manuel José Estrada Cabrera was President of Guatemala from 8 February 1898 to 15 April 1920.Manuel Estrada forcibly took the presidency after the assassination of José María Reina. The Guatemalan cabinet called an emergency meeting to appoint a new successor, but declined to invite the General...

 was notorious for his brutal repression of dissent in Guatemala, and Asturias had been involved in protests against his rule in 1920. Asturias integrated and reworked incidents from Estrada Cabrera's dictatorship into the novel, such as the torture of a political adversary, who had been tricked "into believing that his innocent wife had been unfaithful to him".

Estrada Cabrera was eventually forced out of office as a result of popular disturbances and the intervention of U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and other foreign diplomats. Rather than go into exile, however, the ex-president opted to defend himself against criminal charges. In the ensuing trial, Asturias served as a legal secretary and so, as Gregory Rabassa
Gregory Rabassa
Gregory Rabassa is a renowned literary translator from Spanish and Portuguese to English who currently teaches at Queens College.-Life and career:Rabassa was born in Yonkers, New York, U.S., into a family headed by a Cuban émigré...

's biographical sketch points out, he had the opportunity to base his own fictional leader—the President—on his observations of the disgraced Guatemalan dictator. As Asturias himself put it:
was not published until years after it was written. Asturias claims that Jorge Ubico y Castañeda, the dictator of Guatemala from 1931 to 1944, "prohibited its publication because his predecessor, Estrada Cabrera, was my which meant that the book posed a danger to him as well". Additionally, because Ubico was Guatemala's dictator while the novel was being finished, critics have linked him with the characterization of the President in . As Himelblau notes, elements of the book "could easily have been interpreted as reflecting [...] General Ubico's dictatorship". The novel eventually first saw the light of day in Mexico, in 1946, at a time when Juan José Arévalo
Juan José Arévalo
Juan José Arévalo Bermejo was the first of the reformist presidents of Guatemala. Preceded by military junta interregnum after a definitive pro-democracy revolt in 1944...

 was serving as Guatemala's first democratically elected president.

Despite the manifest influence of Asturias's experiences in Guatemala under Estrada Cabrera and Ubico, and despite certain historical ties, critic Richard Callan observes that Asturias's "attention is not limited to his times and nation, but ranges across the world and reaches back through the ages. By linking his created world with the dawn of history, and his twentieth-century characters with myths and archetypes, he has anchored them to themes of universal significance." Asturias himself affirms that he "wrote without a social commitment". By this he means that unlike some of his other books, such as (Legends of Guatemala) or (Men of Maize), " had a wider relevance because it did not focus so heavily on Guatemalan myths and traditions." Asturias depicts aspects of life that are common to all dictatorial regimes, and so establishes as one of his most influential works.

Part one

The novel begins on the Cathedral Porch, where beggars spend their nights. One beggar, the Zany, is exhausted after being continually harassed about his deceased mother. When one of the President's loyal military men, Colonel Jose Parrales Sonriente, jeers the word "mother" at him, the Zany instinctively retaliates and murders the Colonel. The beggars are interrogated and tortured into agreeing that the retired General Eusebio Canales, once in the President's military, and the independent lawyer Abel Carvajal killed the Colonel because according the President's men, there is no way "an idiot is responsible". Meanwhile, a delusional Zany flees "away down the shadowy streets in a paroxysm of mad terror".

A rare glimpse of the President shows him ordering Miguel Angel Face, sometimes referred to as the President's "favourite", to help General Canales flee before he is arrested in the morning for the murder of Sonriente. The President, who presumably orchestrated the accusations for his own purposes, wants Canales to flee because "running away would be a confession of guilt".

At the Two Step, a local tavern, Miguel Angel Face meets Lucio Vásquez, a policeman, and is inspired to tell Vásquez that he is kidnapping General Canales's daughter, Camila, as "a ruse to deceive the watchful authorities". He claims to be kidnapping Camila to cover up the truth of Canales's escape. Later, Vásquez meets with his friend Genaro Rodas, and upon leaving a bar they see the Zany. To Genaro Rodas's horror, Vásquez shoots the Zany. The aftermath of this scene is witnessed by Don Benjamin, a puppet-master, whose "puppets took the tragedy as their theme". Genaro Rodas returns home and discusses the murder of the Zany with his wife, Fedina de Rodas, and informs her that the police plan to arrest Canales in the morning. Meanwhile, Canales leaves Miguel Angel Face's home, exhausted and anxious about fleeing the country. Later that evening, Canales escapes safely while the police ransack his home and Miguel Angel Face sneaks in to bring Camila safely to the Two Step.

Part two

In the early morning, Fedina de Rodas rushes to Canales's house in an attempt to save him from arrest for the murder of Colonel Sonriente. She arrives too late and is found by the Judge Advocate, an aide to the President. He arrests her as an accomplice in Canales's escape, and tortures her in hopes of learning Canales's location. The soldiers smear lime on her breasts before giving her back her baby, which causes its death as it refuses to feed from "the sharpness of the lime".

Back at the Two Step, Miguel Angel Face visits Camila. He tries to find her a home with her aunts and uncles but they all refuse to take her in for fear of losing their friends and being associated with "the daughter of one of the President's enemies". More is revealed of Miguel Angel Face's complex character and the struggle between his physical desires for Camila and his desire to become a better person in a world ruled by terror.

Camila grows very ill and a boy is sent to inform Miguel Angel Face that her condition has worsened. He dresses quickly and rushes to the Two Step to see her. Eventually relieved of charges by the President, Fedina de Rodas is purchased by a brothel, and when it is discovered that she is holding her dead baby in her arms, she is placed in a hospital. Miguel Angel Face informs Major Farfan, who is in the service of the President, that there is a threat to his life. By this act saving a man in danger, Angel Face hopes "God would grant him Camila's life in exchange". General Canales escapes into a village and, assisted by three sisters and a smuggler, crosses the frontier of the country after saving the sisters by killing a doctor who harassed them with the payment of an absurd debt.

Part three

A student, a sacristan and Abel Carvajal, together in a prison cell, talk because they are "terrified of the silence" and "terrified of the darkness". Carvajal's wife runs all over town, visiting the President and influential figures such as the Judge Advocate, begging for her husband's release because she is left in the dark regarding what has happened to him. Carvajal is given a chance to read his indictment but, unable to defend himself against falsified evidence, is sentenced to execution.

Miguel Angel Face is advised that if he really loves her then Camila can be spared "by means of the sacrament of marriage" and the two of them are soon married. Camila is healing and struggling with the complexities of her new marriage. General Canales dies suddenly in the midst of plans to lead a revolution when he is falsely informed that the President has attended his daughter’s wedding.

The President runs for re-election, championed in a bar by his fawning supporters, while Angel Face is entrusted with an international diplomatic mission. Camila and Angel Face share an emotional parting. Major Farfan intercepts Angel Face once he reaches the port and arrests him on the President’s orders. Angel Face is violently beaten and imprisoned and an impostor takes his place on the departing ship. Camila, now pregnant, waits anxiously for letters from her husband. When she is past hope, Camila moves to the countryside with her young boy, whom she calls Miguel. Angel Face becomes the nameless prisoner in cell 17. He thinks constantly of Camila as the hope of seeing her again is the "last and only thing that remained alive in him" and ultimately dies heartbroken when he is falsely told that she has become the President’s mistress.

Epilogue

The Cathedral Porch stands in ruins and prisoners who have been released are quickly replaced by other unfortunate souls. The puppet-master, Don Benjamin, has been reduced to madness because of the environment of terror he has been made to endure. Readers are given one more glimpse of the maddening state of life under a dictatorship. The epilogue concludes with a more hopeful tone, which is seen through a "mother's voice telling her rosary" which concludes with the Kyrie
Kyrie
Kyrie, a transliteration of Greek κύριε , vocative case of κύριος , meaning "Lord", is the common name of an important prayer of Christian liturgy, which is also called the Kýrie, eléison ....

 eleison; the call for the "Lord to have Mercy".

Major characters

The President

The fact that the novel's title character, the President, is never named gives him a mythological dimension, rather than the personality of a specific Guatemalan dictator. Literary scholar Kevin Bauman notes that readers are not let into the mind of the President; instead his appearance is "continually re-evaluated, re-defined, and, ultimately, re-constructed according to his perception by others, similar to Asturias's own novelistic (re)vision of Estrada Cabrera's regime". According to literary critic Hughes Davies, the President "represents political corruption but his presentation as an evil deity who is worshiped in terms that mockingly echo religious ritual elevates him to a mythical plane" and he is "an inverted image of both the Christian and Mayan deities since he is the source only of death". The dictator also has an element of mystery about him—it seems that no one knows where he is because he occupies several houses on the outskirts of the town. Mystery also surrounds the questions of when and how he sleeps. In the novel, rumors abound that he sleeps beside the telephone with a whip in his hand while others claim that he never sleeps at all.
Because the appearance of the President is infrequent in the novel, readers' perceptions of him are formed through other, often minor, characters and episodes. As such, literary critic Himelblau states that "the novel does not develop the figure of the President as a fictive personage, does not follow the President through a series of actions or diegetic
Diegesis
Diegesis is a style of representation in fiction and is:# the world in which the situations and events narrated occur; and# telling, recounting, as opposed to showing, enacting.In diegesis the narrator tells the story...

 complications that lead to psychological-existential changes or transformations of his character".

Miguel Angel Face

Miguel Angel Face (orig. Spanish ) is the novel's complex protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...

. He is introduced as the President's confidential adviser; there are many references to him as the President's favorite and he is repeatedly described "as beautiful and as wicked as Satan". As the plot proceeds readers see his struggle to remain loyal to the dictator in the face of the regime's increasingly horrific acts. Angel Face is faced with the challenge of reconciling his position of power among a terrorized people with his desire to fulfill a higher moral purpose. In the words of literary critic Richard Franklin, he "struggles to affirm his absolute existence and to relate this to an authentic self". Angel Face's linguistic intensity often reflects his inner moral struggle:
'An animal makes no mistake in its sexual reckonings,' he thought. 'We piss children into the graveyard. The trumpets of Judgement Day—very well, it won't be a trumpet. Golden scissors will cut through the continuous stream of children. We men are like pigs' tripes stuffed with mincemeat by a demon butcher to make sausages. And when I mastered my own nature so as to save Camila from my desire, I left a part of myself unstuffed; that's why I feel empty, uneasy, angry, ill caught in a trap. Woman is the mincemeat into which man stuffs himself like a pig's tripes for his own gratification. What vulgarity!'

General Eusebio Canales

General Eusebio Canales (alias Chamarrita or Prince of Arms) is forced into exile after being accused of the murder of Colonel José Parrales Sonriente. He appears to be organizing a guerrilla attack on the President, but dies of a broken heart after reading a false news report detailing his daughter's wedding to Miguel Angel Face, at which the President was apparently present. The character of the General comes into clearer focus while he is on the road to exile. Canales's road to exile also introduces readers to the desperate financial situation of three sisters who are being taken advantage of by a doctor who visited their ailing mother. This episode demonstrates that corruption and malice exist not just in the capital city but also in rural villages.

Camila

Camila, General Canales's daughter, is (somewhat reluctantly) rescued by Miguel Angel Face, when none of her relatives will take her in upon the flight of her father. Eventually Angel Face chooses Camila over his former master, the President. The two marry and she gives birth to his son, but only once Angel Face has disappeared. She and her son, whom she names Miguel, are last seen having moved to the countryside to escape the President's influence. She is the very picture of the adolescent who has been denied even the smallest margin of liberty, as critic Callan observes: "when Camila was thought to be dying a priest came to administer the sacrament of Penance. Her girlish faults stand out in the contrast with the evil that weighs upon the city. Indeed, one of the things she mentions in her confession is no fault at all: she went horseback riding astride, in the presence of some Indians."

The Zany

The Zany (orig. Spanish el Pelele), also translated as the Idiot by some critics, appears only in the first four chapters and again at the end of chapter seven but serves a critical function in the novel. The Zany, who "looked like a corpse when he was asleep" and had eyes that "saw nothing, felt nothing" is critical to establishing the tone of the novel and triggering the novel's action. Critic John Walker argues that, by "choosing the Idiot as a representative of the innocent, a political, who suffer the abuses of a totalitarian regime [...] Asturias shows how dictatorship corrupts people and destroys their values to the extent that compassion for one's companion in distress ceases to exist." In fact, it becomes clear that the only happiness that the Zany experiences is through the memory of his dead mother. Asturias then shows how el Pelele, a mother-loving figure, "suffers at the hands of those who, long under the domination of the over-aggressive father figure, lack love and pity". Furthermore, el Pelele is a tool that allows readers to see the psychological effects of living under a dictatorship ruled by terror. His murderous act seems to trigger the subsequent events of the novel and to impact on all the characters. Also important is the fact that the one moment of complete happiness experienced by the Zany in the novel takes place while he is in a dream-like state. Walker argues that this serves to highlight the harsh, nightmarish world of reality in which he has been forced to live.

Minor characters

The novel includes a host of minor characters who, in Richard Franklin's words, "grope for the means to assert the validity of self and to anchor this individuality in a nightmare which constantly faces it with black nothingness". These characters range from Colonel José Parrales Sonriente, otherwise known as the "man with the little mule", whose murder at the Cathedral Porch opens the novel, to a series of beggars, prisoners, minor officials, relatives, flatterers, barkeepers and prostitutes. Some of these are tragic figures, such as Fedina de Rodas, who readers see tortured and then sold to a brothel while she still clutches her dead baby in her arms. Others, however, provide comic relief
Comic relief
Comic relief is the inclusion of a humorous character, scene or witty dialogue in an otherwise serious work, often to relieve tension.-Definition:...

. Sometimes they have colorful or playful names or nicknames, such as "Flatfoot" (a beggar), the "Talking Cow" (a woman who delivers a speech of praise to the President), or Doña Benjamin VenJamón, who, with her husband the puppet-master Don Benjamin, closes the novel with a lament for the demise of the Cathedral Porch.

Magic realism

According to scholar Luis Leal, in the genre of magic realism, "the writer confronts reality and tries to untangle it, to discover what is mysterious in things, in life, in human acts." Magic realist writing does not create imaginary creatures or places; instead, the writer tries to display "the mysterious relationship between man and his circumstances". Leal further points out that in magic realism, "key events have no logical or psychological explanation. The magical realist does not try to copy the surrounding reality or to wound it but to seize the mystery that breathes behind things." He also clarifies that "magical realism is not magic literature either. Its aim, unlike that of magic, is to express emotions, not to evoke them".

To many scholars, is a landmark Latin American novel because of Asturias's early use of magic realism, a literary technique often employed by acclaimed Latin American writers such as Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel García Márquez
Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...

. In an interview with Asturias, Gunter Lorenz heralded Asturias as the inventor of magic realism, and even as its most successful practitioner. Asturias himself defines this style not as "a concrete reality but a reality that arises from a definitely magical imagination ... in which we see the real disappear and the dream emerge, in which dreams are transformed into a tangible reality". Richard Franklin argues that magic realism is most evident in Asturias's exploration and depiction of the innermost reality of the human mind. This exploration is combined with "the material content of an urban mass caught in the grip of an iron regime" throughout the novel. Franklin goes on to herald the synthesis of these two elements as "a real contribution to the novelistic genre of America".

Dictator novel

Asturias first wrote in response to the dictatorial rule of Manuel Estrada Cabrera
Manuel Estrada Cabrera
Manuel José Estrada Cabrera was President of Guatemala from 8 February 1898 to 15 April 1920.Manuel Estrada forcibly took the presidency after the assassination of José María Reina. The Guatemalan cabinet called an emergency meeting to appoint a new successor, but declined to invite the General...

. Because Asturias spent a decade writing the novel, the delay in its publication, and the fact that it never names its eponymous President, many scholars have noted that it could equally be taken to apply to the subsequent regime of Jorge Ubico. Moreover, since the novel's publication, it has been used to critique dictatorial rule throughout Latin America. In its examination of the nature of dictatorial power in general, it helped initiate the new genre of the dictator novel. As literary critic Gerald Martin
Gerald Martin
Gerald Martin is a prolific critic of Latin American fiction. He is particularly known for his work on the Guatemalan author Miguel Ángel Asturias and on the Colombian Gabriel García Márquez, both of whom are winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature....

 argues, is "the first real dictator novel".

The dictator novel is a genre that has developed as a vehicle for Latin American writers to critique concentrated authority. Assistant Professor of Spanish at Walsh University, Jorge J Barrueto, argues that has been heralded as epitomizing dictatorship, "a phenomenon perceived to be a natural and inherent trait in the region". According to Garcia Calderon, the legacy of colonialism
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...

 in Latin America has often led to the rise of an absolute authority, which seeks to contain a nation's inner conflict. Once in power, the man in charge often seeks complete control; he often amends constitutions, dismantling laws which previously prevented his re-election. For example, in 1899 General Manuel Estrada Cabrera altered the Guatemalan Constitution which had previously prohibited his re-election. Typically, however, dictator novels attempt to examine the abstract nature of authority figures and to question the idea of authority in general instead of focusing on the rule of a particular dictator.

Asturias's text marks a dramatic shift in narrative writing. Precursors such as Domingo Sarmiento
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento was an Argentine activist, intellectual, writer, statesman and the seventh President of Argentina. His writing spanned a wide range of genres and topics, from journalism to autobiography, to political philosophy and history...

's Facundo
Facundo
Facundo: Civilization and Barbarism is a book written in 1845 by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, a writer and journalist who became the seventh president of Argentina...

(1845) were judged on how adequately they reflected reality. With its stylized magic realism, Asturias's broke from this realist paradigm—it is an avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

 novel that laid the foundation for many other authors to develop what is now a broad and extensive genre.

Style

According to Latin American literary scholar Gerald Martin, Asturias's , which was written and published before the Latin American Boom
Latin American Boom
The Latin American Boom was a literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s when the work of a group of relatively young Latin American novelists became widely circulated in Europe and throughout the world...

 of the 1960s, uses a style now classified as the "new novel" or "new narrative". In this novel, Asturias breaks from the historic
Historical novel
According to Encyclopædia Britannica, a historical novel is-Development:An early example of historical prose fiction is Luó Guànzhōng's 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history and left a lasting impact on Chinese culture.The...

 and realist
Literary realism
Literary realism most often refers to the trend, beginning with certain works of nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary life and society "as they were." In the spirit of...

 style that dominated novels at the time. Martin argues that the novel "exemplifies more clearly than any other novel the crucial link between European Surrealism and Latin American Magical Realism. It is, indeed, the first fully-fledged Surrealist novel in Latin America."

Richard Franklin contends that on occasion surrealist writing obscures meaning, but in Asturias avoids this flaw. His combination of rationalism with "a world of forms" creates "an imagery which reveals a deeper reality, one which is more deeply rooted in the human psyche". As such, Asturias's surrealist style highlights the modern disintegration of long-standing belief systems. Literary scholar Gabriele Eckart gives as an excellent example of Asturias's surrealist style his portrayal of The Zany's psychic processes in which "language sometimes breaks apart into incomprehensible sounds". This allows Asturias to present the real and imaginary, as well as the communicable and incommunicable, as non-contradictory. Himelblau also highlights how projects "reality in relative, fluid terms—that is it allows its characters to disclose the temporal setting of the novel's fictional events". In this regard, then, Himelblau notes that "is also, as far as we are aware, the first novel in Spanish America that seeks to render fictional reality of time as a function of point of view". The novel defies traditional narrative style by inserting numerous episodes that contribute little or nothing to the plot as the characters in these episodes often appear inconsistently. Instead of relaying the book's themes through characters, Asturias uses repetition of motifs and a mythical substructure to solidify the book's message.

Asturias employs figurative language to describe dream imagery and the irrational. Literary critic Hughes Davies points out that Asturias frequently appeals to the reader's auditory senses. Asturias's often incantatory
Incantation
An incantation or enchantment is a charm or spell created using words. An incantation may take place during a ritual, either a hymn or prayer, and may invoke or praise a deity. In magic, occultism, witchcraft it may be used with the intention of casting a spell on an object or a person...

 style employs "unadulterated poetry to reinforce his imagery through sound". This helps readers to understand the physical as well as the psychological aspects of the novel. According to Knightly, "few of Asturias's characters have much psychological depth; their inner conflicts tend to be externalized and played out at the archetypal level". More significantly, Asturias was the first Latin American novelist to combine stream of consciousness writing and figurative language. Hughes Davies argues that from the outset of , the gap between words and reality is exemplified through onomatopoeia, simile
Simile
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two different things, usually by employing the words "like", "as". Even though both similes and metaphors are forms of comparison, similes indirectly compare the two ideas and allow them to remain distinct in spite of their similarities, whereas...

 and repetition of phrases. Knightly notes that "animistic elements surface occasionally in the characters' stream of consciousness". For example, in the chapter "Tohil's Dance", Tohil
Tohil
Tohil was a deity of the K'iche' Maya in the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerica. At the time of the Spanish Conquest, Tohil was the patron god of the K'iche'. Tohil's principal function was that of a fire deity and he was also both a sun god and the god of rain. Tohil was also associated with...

, the God of Rain in Maya mythology
Maya mythology
Mayan mythology is part of Mesoamerican mythology and comprises all of the Mayan tales in which personified forces of nature, deities, and the heroes interacting with these play the main roles...

, is imagined by Angel Face as arriving "riding on a river of pigeons' breasts which flowed like milk". In Angel Face's vision, Tohil demands a human sacrifice and is content only so long as he "can prevail over men who are hunters of men". Tohil pronounces: "Henceforth there will be neither true death nor true life. Now dance." As Knightly explains, this scene follows the President's orders for Miguel Angel Face to go on a mission that ends in his death, and is "a sign of the President's evil nature and purposes". Davies contends that these literary techniques, when "combined together with a discontinuous structure, give the text its surrealistic and nightmarish atmosphere".

Reality vs. dream

Asturias blurs the separation between dream and reality throughout , making it one of the novel's most prominent themes. Latin American writer and critic Ariel Dorfman
Ariel Dorfman
Vladimiro Ariel Dorfman is an Argentine-Chilean novelist, playwright, essayist, academic, and human rights activist. A citizen of the United States since 2004, he has been a professor of literature and Latin American Studies at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina since 1985.-Personal...

 notes that the mixing of dream and reality is partly a result of Asturias's frequent use of figurative language. This stylistic choice is reflected in the content of the story itself, which suggests that an important effect of dictatorial power is the blurring of dreams and reality. Dorfman also notes that the President is sustained by fear, which further blurs the distinction between reality and dream. This fear grants him the voluntary or involuntary support of others, enabling the President to exercise his mandates. Dorfman asserts that the President's use of fear elevates his mandates to legends. These legends are then able to "impose itself upon reality because men live it fully in a way to make sense of their humanity". One example of this theme, elucidated by Eckart, is a series of scenes leading to the arrest of the lawyer Carvajal. When the President decides to blame Carvajal for the murder of Colonel Sonriente, it is clear that Carvajal is confounded by the charges. Moreover, despite being a lawyer, Carvajal is unable to defend himself during the sham trial with "the members of the tribunal so drunk that they cannot hear him". As Eckart asserts, "to be captured and tortured without ever knowing why is another horrible feature of a dictatorship. For the victim, reality unexpectedly becomes unreality, no longer comprehensible by a logical mind." Therefore, the use of fear by a dictatorship blurs the line between reality and dream for the people being ruled.

Asturias's ambiguous use of detail adds to the confusion between reality and dream. For example, the title pages of parts one and two state that they take place between April 21 and 27. Part three, on the other hand, occurs over "Weeks, Months, Years". While this time-scale initially appears very specific, no year is indicated. Furthermore, the novel is set in a country similar to Guatemala and includes references to Maya gods
Maya mythology
Mayan mythology is part of Mesoamerican mythology and comprises all of the Mayan tales in which personified forces of nature, deities, and the heroes interacting with these play the main roles...

 (such as in the chapter "Tohil's Dance") but no direct statement by any character confirms this. Bauman argues that Asturias, by "preferring instead to distance himself from the immediate historical reality and focus critical light on the internal problems", attends to what "he sees there". This enables Asturias to address a wider audience, not restricted to Guatemalans, that can relate individually to the experience of living under dictatorial rule.

In obscuring reality, truth becomes unclear. As literary critic Mireille Rosello notes, it is the President who decides what is true, denying any other opinion, even if other characters witness an event with their own eyes or ears. Unlike the characters in the novel, readers are aware that the characters are relying on a notion of truth or reality that no longer exists under the dictatorship of the President. "Truth" does not exist before the President puts it into words, and even at that, the only "truth" under dictatorial rule is the words the President is speaking at any given moment—one cannot even safely repeat the President's versions of events. The characters are thus left unaware of what constitutes the "truth".

Writing and power

A major theme of the dictator novel
Dictator novel
The dictator novel is a genre of Latin American literature that challenges the role of the dictator in Latin American society. The theme of caudillismo—the régime of a charismatic caudillo, a political strongman—is addressed by examining the relationships between power, dictatorship,...

 concerns the use of writing as a medium of power. In , Asturias uses language to challenge dictator
Dictator
A dictator is a ruler who assumes sole and absolute power but without hereditary ascension such as an absolute monarch. When other states call the head of state of a particular state a dictator, that state is called a dictatorship...

ial power. Throughout the novel the reader observes the authority of the President over the people through his control of what they write. In the chapter "The President's Mail-Bag", a stream of letters informs the President of peoples' actions. While many are "writing the truth" and turning in their fellow citizens, many others feel that "it is not safe to trust to paper". Writing is closely linked to authority and is a means to solidify power, because language can be manipulated into lies that eventually kill. For example, the President orders a newspaper to include the false statement that he attended the wedding of Camila, the daughter of General Canales. When the General reads these words and perceives them as truth, his heart is broken and he subsequently dies. Miguel Angel Face is also killed by the manipulation of words: he is told that Camila has become the President's mistress, and upon hearing this falsified news, he loses the will to live. These episodes in the novel demonstrate how closely language, the written word, and power are linked. The characters in lose their sense of reality, making it difficult for them to know who to trust. As Rosello argues, "in this state of terror, language is deliberately used as a means of seducing the addressee into harmlessness, and has lost its function of conveying information".

Hope

In , hope is suppressed by the dictatorship. As the Judge Advocate states in the novel, "the President's first rule of conduct is never to give grounds for hope, and everyone must be kicked and beaten until they realise the fact". It can be argued that Camila represents hope in the novel because both her father and husband were able to persevere under the dictatorship by thinking of her; however, the President destroys this sense of hope with false stories. When the thought of her loyalty is eliminated, both her father and husband die because they have lost the hope of returning to her. Furthermore, Camila's happiness with her child and their escape to the countryside can be seen as the one glimpse of hope in an otherwise dark and disturbing ending. For critic Jean Franco
Jean Franco
Jean Franco is a British-born academic and literary critic known for her pioneering work on Latin American literature. Educated at Manchester and London, she has taught at London, Essex , and Stanford, and is currently professor emerita at Columbia University.-Research:Jean Franco's research is...

, it is love that offers what little hope there is in the novel: "The system is undermined only by love—the love of an idiot for his mother, a woman trying desperately to save her husband from death."

Tyranny and alienation

The theme of tyranny and alienation shows how a dictatorship not only alienates and "other
Other
The Other or Constitutive Other is a key concept in continental philosophy; it opposes the Same. The Other refers, or attempts to refer, to that which is Other than the initial concept being considered...

s" the people in the country, but also prevents the country itself from achieving European modernization. In a 1967 essay, literary critic Ariel Dorfman
Ariel Dorfman
Vladimiro Ariel Dorfman is an Argentine-Chilean novelist, playwright, essayist, academic, and human rights activist. A citizen of the United States since 2004, he has been a professor of literature and Latin American Studies at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina since 1985.-Personal...

 argues that "dictatorship, which in manifested itself in the political realm, is now a dictatorship of fire of the word, but always a tyranny that men themselves ask for, adore, and help to build". Dorfman also notes that "The 'little human bundles' of Asturias's world end up destroying themselves, being disintegrated by the very forces that they themselves spoke." By this he means that the characters are undone by their own actions and words as the President uses and twists them. The tyranny of language perversely parallels the political oppression which is omnipresent in Asturias's world. Richard Franklin argues that "in a philosophical sense, Asturias has eloquently affirmed the validity of individual experience".

Asturias shows how, under the conditions of dictatorship, characters slowly lose their human identities. The Zany, for instance, while fleeing the city, is described as running "aimlessly, with his mouth opened and his tongue hanging out, slobbering and panting". Just a few lines later, the Zany is "whin[ing] like an injured dog". In what is in part a critique of the book, Jorge Barrueto argues that depicts Latin America as a whole as "Other". Everyone from the President to the Zany displays this “otherness” as they cannot be civilized. Dictatorship produces Otherness, by dehumanizing its subjects, but is also itself presented as barbaric, absurd, and no more than an "imitation of the European ways". Thanks to phenomena such as dictatorship, Latin America appears to be a land where "Otherness" prevails and for this reason Latin America cannot "evolve" or reach truly European levels of modernity. For Barrueto, "this narrative's goal is to prove that Latin American societies, though they are aware of the blueprint of Modernity, are unable to act accordingly."

Fertility and destruction

According to Latin American literature scholar Richard Callan, the dichotomy between destruction and fertility is embodied in the opposition between the President and Miguel Angel Face. While the President represents sterility and destruction, his favorite, Miguel Angel Face, embodies fertility, a positive and generative force of nature. Callan notes that Miguel Angel Face's transformation from the President's favorite to a positive generative force is not deliberate. Instead, Callan argues that "it results from the birth of true love in his formerly barren heart. However, he is too engrossed in his love to notice the shift in his relationship with the President." The President, not surprisingly, identifies himself candidly with death. Examples from the novel include the death sentences he gives to Abel Carvajal (for a crime the President is fully aware the man did not commit) and to Lucio Vasquez, a man in his service that carried out his wish for the Zany to be killed and yet is still executed. In contrast to the President, Callan highlights Miguel Angel Face's association with love. The love that Miguel Angel Face develops for Camila identifies him with love and life, and leads to procreation—the birth of his son. Rosello argues that even before his transformation, Miguel Angel Face was aware of the President's destructive nature. As such, Rosello argues that Miguel Angel Face "knew from the beginning that the only 'safety' in the President's world is a form of self destruction: only by losing his identity and letting the President's mind invade his own could he hope to remain alive". So, when he failed to comply, he did indeed lose his life.

Reception

In Guatemala, received significant attention from the date of its first publication. Mostly this was from other left-wing writers and intellectuals, who recognized and praised both its stylistic innovation and its political commitment, if sometimes with the complaint that the novel was overly influenced by European modernism. But, as Dante Liano observes, "those in power have not been able to stand Asturias's voice".

Critical reception elsewhere in Latin America was also enthusiastic. One of the book's first reviewers was María Rosa Oliver, writing in the influential Argentine journal Sur shortly after the novel's second edition was produced in Buenos Aires. She particularly praises the plot: the fact that the novel is more than simply a lyrical still life. Rather, she argues, "stirs our five senses." And her conclusion stresses the book's Latin American qualities, arguing that it "enchants us, stirs us, moves us, and softens us all at the same time, producing much the same effect as when we travel, eyes and heart wide open, around these Latin American lands or the pages that tell their history."

Before long the novel's fame spread around the world. The first award Asturias received for was the French Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger
Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger
The Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger is a French literary prize created in 1948. It is awarded yearly in two categories: Novel and Essay for books translated in to French.- Prix du Meilleur livre étranger — Novel :* 2010: Gonçalo M...

 in 1952. has steadily garnered further acclaim. In the words of literary scholar Jack Himelblau, the book is "an avant-garde and critically significant novel in the history of Spanish-American fiction" and Latin American history and literature scholar Charles Macune includes in a list of prominent translated Latin American novels. For Macune, novels and novelists of Latin America are "both history makers as well as reflections of the region's history". Unlike Latin American newspapers and archival materials, translated Latin American novels are far more accessible to readers without a knowledge of Spanish. In fact, Macune shows that has been well-received not only in its original Spanish but also in its English translation.

Nobel Prize

In December 1967 Asturias won the Nobel Prize in Literature
Nobel Prize in Literature
Since 1901, the Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually to an author from any country who has, in the words from the will of Alfred Nobel, produced "in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction"...

 for his life's work, including . Upon receiving the prize, he gave a lecture regarding Latin American literature as both "testimony" and "instrument for struggle". In particular, he spoke about the possibility of forging a new style of novel in Latin America, drawing on the region's indigenous heritage. This new style would make the novel a vehicle of hope and light in what he termed "this night that threatens us now". It would be "the affirmation of the optimism of those writers that defied the Inquisition, opening a breach in the conscience of the people for the march of the Liberators".

The Nobel Prize Committee, in awarding the prize, described in the following terms:
This magnificent and tragic satire criticizes the prototype of the Latin American dictator who appeared in several places at the beginning of the century and has since reappeared, his existence being fostered by the mechanism of tyranny which, for the common man, makes every day a hell on earth. The passionate vigour with which Asturias evokes the terror and distrust which poisoned the social atmosphere of the time makes his work a challenge and an invaluable aesthetic gesture.


Asturias's home country celebrated his international recognition. In Guatemala his face soon adorned postage stamps, a street was named after him, and he received a medal. According to Kjell Strömberg in The 1967 Prize, "the whole of his little country was given over to rejoicing". Further admiration was expressed throughout Latin America, where Asturias's Nobel Prize was viewed as an accomplishment for Latin American literature as a whole, rather than the achievement of a single author or country. As scholar Richard Jewell notes, there had been substantial criticism that Latin American writers were being ignored by the Nobel committee. Beginning with Miguel Ángel Asturias in 1967, however, the academy selected four Latin American writers within twenty-four years.

Biographer Gregory Rabassa
Gregory Rabassa
Gregory Rabassa is a renowned literary translator from Spanish and Portuguese to English who currently teaches at Queens College.-Life and career:Rabassa was born in Yonkers, New York, U.S., into a family headed by a Cuban émigré...

, who has translated other works by Asturias, highlights the effects of the Nobel Prize on Asturias's subsequent work, saying, "[h]is winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1967 gave him a long-awaited financial independence that ... enabled him to withdraw to his writing and the many aims and possibilities that [had] been on his mind for so many years".

Adaptations

has been adapted into three Spanish-language films and one play. The first of the films, filmed in black and white, was made in 1970, by Argentine director Marcos Madanes. It was originally shown at the 1970 Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...

. The cast included Pedro Buchardo
Pedro Buchardo
Pedro Buchardo was an Argentine actor. He was born in Carmen, Santa Fe.-Filmography:*Un guapo del 900 *Los Mochileros *Gitano *Amalio Reyes, un hombre *El Señor Presidente...

 as the President, Luis Brandoni
Luis Brandoni
Luis Brandoni is an Argentine film and television actor. Politically active in the centrist Radical Civic Union , he was elected to the Argentine Chamber of Deputies in 1993, where he served until, 2001...

 as Miguel and Alejandra Dapassano as Camila. As in Asturias's novel, the action is instigated when the village idiot kills a jeering army colonel, and in response, the president decides to blame the murder on a political adversary, but from that point on the film diverges from the novel. In the film, an operative is sent to spread rumors about the accused but instead he falls in love with the accused man’s daughter. Once this happens, the operative defies his loyalty to the president and helps the daughter and her father incite a revolution with what he knows about the corrupt leader. Asturias himself complained about the film: he "sent a telegram to the Venice Film Festival denying permission to show the feature, but the letter arrived a day late. The unfortunate audience then had to endure this malodorous melodrama."

was adapted for the stage by playwright Hugo Carrillo, and first performed in a production of the Compañía de Arte Dramático de la Universidad Popular directed by Rubén Morales at the twelfth Festival of Guatemalan Theatre in 1974. It was a great popular success, with over 200 performances during its ten-month run, much longer than the two months of weekend performances that were standard for the festival, and the run broke Central American box office records. The production later toured Central America and other groups have also performed it, so that over 50,000 people have seen the play in over eight other countries besides Guatemala. Carrillo was notably concerned about the staging of the play by others; he grew angry at a Salvadoran production that changed a few scenes, and casting differences with Joseph Papp
Joseph Papp
Joseph Papp was an American theatrical producer and director. Papp established The Public Theater in what had been the Astor Library Building in downtown New York . "The Public," as it is known, has many small theatres within it...

 led to the cancellation of the play at the 1987 New York Latin American Festival (this canceled production was the origin of the English translation of the play, written by Margarita Kénefic, a student of Carrillo).

The play was also critically acclaimed, receiving many awards and has been written of as the zenith of a "Golden Age" of Guatemalan theatre. The play engaged the politics of the time (the Institutional Democratic Party
Institutional Democratic Party
The Institutional Democratic Party was a Guatemalan pro-government political party active during the 1970s.The PID was formed in 1963 by Enrique Peralta Azurdia after he had seized power in a coup. A centre-right party, it was modelled on the Mexican Institutional Revolutionary Party. From the...

 was then in power), and Carrillo felt it necessary at first to attribute the script to the pseudonym "Franz Metz", and had photos taken of someone portraying "Metz" with the director; on opening night, secret police came inquiring after the address of Asturias (who had died earlier that year), and the government started paying attention to the previews of plays in the next year.

The second film adaptation, in 1983, was directed by Manuel Octavio Gómez
Manuel Octavio Gómez
Manuel Octavio Gómez was a prolific Cuban film director and writer.-Filmography:* Historia de una batalla * Cuentos del Alhambra * Encuentro, El * Salación, La...

, and was one of the last films made by this prolific Cuban film director. It starred French actor Michel Auclair
Michel Auclair
Michel Auclair was an actor of Serbian and French ancestry, known best for his roles in French cinema.Auclair was born Vladimir Vujović to a Serbian father and a French mother in Koblenz. His father was Vojislav Vujović, prominent Yugoslav Communist and secretary of the Communist Youth...

 as "El Presidente".

The most recent film adaptation, directed by Venezuelan Rómulo Guardia Granier
Rómulo Guardia
Rómulo Guardia Granier was educated in France, England, and the University of California San Diego in the United States.-Film/Production Career Background:...

 and produced by RCTV
RCTV
Radio Caracas Televisión Internacional is a Venezuelan cable television network headquartered in the Caracas neighborhood of Quinta Crespo. It was sometimes referred to as the Canal de Bárcenas. Owned by Empresas 1BC, RCTV Internacional was inaugurated as Radio Caracas Televisión on 15 November...

 (Radio Caracas Televisión Internacional), was released in November 2007 and is the first film produced by RCTV in more than twenty years. This version paints the picture of a hopeless love story—one that is unable to succeed under the terrorizing and corrupt dictatorship. It therefore plays up what is only hinted at in the novel itself, the possibility that the President is driven at least in part by sexual desire.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of this film version is the way in which it was immediately taken as a commentary on the present government of Venezuela. Director Granier divulged in an interview, "We had to film in secret in order to avoid being shut down." Antonio Blanco, who also worked on this adaptation, said that: "We plan to market the film as a Guatemalan story to avoid any problems with authorities." RCTV lost its terrestrial broadcasting rights in mid-2007 when the government of Hugo Chávez
Hugo Chávez
Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías is the 56th and current President of Venezuela, having held that position since 1999. He was formerly the leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when he became the leader of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela...

 (who is democratically elected, but has been accused by opponents of harboring dictatorial tendencies) did not renew the network's license.

Publication details

Selected editions:
  • 1946, Mexico, Costa-Amic (ISBN NA), hardback (First edition, original Spanish)
  • 1948, Argentina, Losada (ISBN NA), hardback (Second edition, Spanish)
  • 1952, Argentina, Losada (ISBN NA), hardback (Third edition, Spanish, corrected by author)
  • 1963, UK, Victor Gollancz (ISBN NA), paperback (Eng. trans. by Frances Partridge
    Frances Partridge
    Frances Catherine Partridge CBE was a long-lived member of the Bloomsbury Group and a writer, probably best known for the publication of her diaries...

     as The President)
  • 1964, USA, Atheneum (ISBN NA), paperback (Eng. trans. by Frances Partridge as )
  • 1972, UK, Penguin (ISBN 978-0-14-003404-2), pub date 30 March 1972, paperback (Eng. trans.as The President)
  • 1978, France, Klincksieck, and Mexico, Fondo de Cultura Económica (ISBN NA) (Spanish, first critical edition, ed. by Ricardo Navas Ruiz and Jean-Marie Saint-Lu, part of Asturias's Complete Works)
  • 1997, USA, Waveland Press (ISBN 978-0-88133-951-2), pub date August 1997, paperback (Eng. trans. as The President)
  • 2000, Spain, Galaxia Gutenberg, and France, ALLCA XX (ISBN 84-89666-51-2), hardback (Spanish, critical edition ed. by Gerald Martin)
  • 2005, Spain, Alianza (ISBN 978-84-206-5876-6), pub date 2 January 2005, paperback (Spanish)


A manuscript exists of the first draft of , which at that time (July 1933) was entitled Tohil. This is now in the National Library of Paris. "Tohil's Dance" is the title of chapter 37 of the finished work. The main differences between this draft and the published book can be found in chapter 12 ("Camila") and in the fact that the former lacks the latter's epilogue.

The first published version of came out in 1946, while Asturias was semi-exiled in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

. The publication was financed by Asturias himself, aided by his parents, as the manuscript had been rejected by the publishers to whom he had sent it. This first edition suffered from numerous typographical errors. These errors were only rectified in the third edition, published in Argentina in 1952, which also included numerous substantial changes introduced by Asturias himself. This edition is, therefore, the first definitive version of the book. As noted by Gerald Martin, editor of the 2000 critical edition, "measured in terms of its decisive historical influence," the third (Losada) edition is "easily the most important of them all".
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