“[A] brilliant translation . . . Electrifying vividness animates every page.” ―Claire Messud, Harper’s Magazine

“A formidable new English translation.” ―The New Yorker

“[A] masterful translation.” ―The Washington Post

Nobel Prize–winning Guatemalan author Miguel Ángel Asturias’s masterpiece—the original Latin American dictator novel and pioneering work of magical realism—in its first new English translation in more than half a century, featuring a foreword by Nobel laureate Mario Vargas Llosa

Also available from Penguin Classics: Miguel Ángel Asturias’s visionary epic of ecological devastation, capitalist exploitation, and Indigenous wisdom, Men of Maize

In an unnamed country, an egomaniacal dictator schemes to dispose of a political adversary and maintain his grip on power. As tyranny takes hold, everyone is forced to choose between compromise and death. Inspired by life under the regime of President Manuel Estrada Cabrera of Guatemala, where it was banned for many years, and infused with exuberant lyricism, Mayan symbolism, and Guatemalan vernacular, Nobel Prize winner Miguel Ángel Asturias’s magnum opus is at once a surrealist masterpiece, a blade-sharp satire of totalitarianism, and a gripping portrait of psychological terror.

For more than seventy-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 2,000 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.