The President

The President is a series of stories connected with the mystery of the murder of a government official, "the man with the little mule," on the steps of a Cathedral. The narrative is interspersed with poem-like and song-like passages in which the same or similar motifs -- songbirds and certain noises -- are oft repeated. As the murder is "solved," characters have weird adventures which are sometimes narrated in the style of fairy tales.

That the mostly dissociative and nauseating narrative style (it involves much confusion, random interludes of obsessive, repetitive onomatopoeia and verse, and deeply affective scenes of brutality and torture) accurately reflects the lived reality under certain Latin American regimes is not questioned here. Yet, I fear that the thoroughly disorienting experience of reading The President will alienate all but the most interested and motivated readers.

If I did purchase this book, then I never received it. I remember I did, and I payed and everything but I never got it. Because I was extreamly busy at that time I just decided to forget about it, but I never got it. I ended up traveling to Guatemala and whent to the most bizarre bookshop to find it and now I have my copy but not through amazon. Hahhaha, I thought I had purchased it through ebay which made me not use ebay anymore, so I'm going to start thinking agan about amazon.

I have read this book in spanish and in english, and like the author, Im Guatemalan too, soo I've seen the places he describes and I know the historical events behind this book, so my advice to you is to read it, you will love it, even if it is difficult to read sometimes, its worth the effort, but if you want to fully absorb the book, investigate the XX century guatemalan history, that will help you read this book in an easier way.
By the way in spanish the book's name is "El Senor Presidente" wich means "Mr. President", not "The President".

I thought The President by Miguel Angel Asturias was a beautiful work, but better read in its original language. The English translation was at some times difficult to read and didn't make sense, it was done without care or consideration to the moral the work was trying to portray. The pages where filled with powerful images and symbols Asturias himself could have witnessed. You could tell the author knew what he was talking about and felt passionate about what he wrote, that passion drove the story on and really showed accurately the political oppression the poor where shown at that time. The characters were dynamic, intense and could have represented easily some political figures of the time. He described each and every character as being guilty of something and didn't shine a godly light on anyone, even the victims of the government. He didn't romanticize the world of fear and constant oppression he strove to show, but presented it plainly as what it was. This is a moving read and I would recommend it to anyone. But you have to be prepared to stick with it because I found the way it is written somewhat different from more common novels. It would be best if read in Spanish because then you wouldn't have to deal with the poorly done translation. I had read some information on Asturias and that really gives new insight into the work. Being able to understand the parallels between the life the author lead and the difficulties he went through gave deeper meaning to what happened to the characters.

Enormously important book which rightly got the Nobel Prize for Literature. It could also have gotten it for human rights. Sadly meaningful in 2005 also. I don't understand, however, why people keep using "magic realism" or "surrealism" to describe it. Fantasy? No.