El señor presidente

Escrito por Miguel Angel Asturias

Narrado por Salvador Sarazúa y Iberto Herrera Jefferson

… ¡Alumbra, lumbre de alumbre, Luzbel de piedralumbre! Como zumbido de oídos persistía el rumor de las campanas a la oración, maldoblestar de la luz en la sombra, de la sombra en la luz. ¡Alumbra, lumbre de alumbre, Luzbel de piedralumbre, sobre la podredumbre!

En El señor presidente, una de las obras que mejor han revelado los horrores de la vida bajo una dictadura, y que inspiró obras como El recurso del método o El otoño del patriarca, Miguel Ángel Asturias cuenta la historia de un despiadado dictador en un país innominado de América Latina y de sus planes para deshacerse de un adversario político. En esta obra cumbre de la literatura en español, Asturias acude a la sátira y al flujo de conciencia surrealista para resaltar los horrores de un gobierno totalitario. El trabajo de Asturias como diplomático y su compromiso contra todas las formas de injusticia lo llevaron a ser reconocido como portavoz de los oprimidos siendo galardonado en 1967 con el Premio Nobel de Literatura por el conjunto de su obra.

“Lo que es bello y transforma este libro demoníaco de atroces episodios en obra artística y le ha dado la vigencia que tiene es su estructura formal y, principalmente, su lenguaje. En esto […] dio un salto cualitativo a la novela en lengua española. […] 
Medio siglo después de escrita, El señor Presidente sigue siendo una de las más originales creaciones de la literatura latinoamericana.” -Prologo del Premio Nobel de Literatura, Mario Vargas Llosa

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION 

NOBEL PRIZE LAUREATE
Guatemalan diplomat and writer Miguel Angel Asturias (1899-1974) began this award-winning work while still a law student. It is a story of ruthless dictator and his schemes to dispose of a political adversary in an unnamed Latin American country usually identified as Guatemala.

The book has been acclaimed for portraying both a totalitarian government and its damaging psychological effects.

Drawing from his experiences as a journalist writing under repressive conditions, Asturias employs such literary devices as satire to convey the government's transgressions and surrealistic dream sequences to demonstrate the police state's impact on the individual psyche. Asturias's stance against all forms of injustice in Guatemala caused critics to view the author as a compassionate spokesperson for the oppressed. "My work," Asturias promised when he accepted the Nobel Prize, "will continue to reflect the voice of the people, gathering their myths and popular beliefs and at the same time seeking to give birth to a universal consciousness of Latin American problems."

• Idioma: Español
• Editorial: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
• Fecha de lanzamiento: 30 sept 2021
• ISBN: 9780593585801

Comentarios para El señor presidente

[colligan · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

I picked up this book with great expectations. I've had my eye on it for some time. It did not disappoint. In fact, it was better than I expected. A superb work of fiction certainly worthy of the Nobel Prize it garnered. The prose was exceptional often times reading like poetry. The author captures the lushness of the scene, the sufferings of the characters, and the brutal realities of the political system with a power few other books I have read can match.

A book that is often painful to read but human truths revealed in an unforgettable manner. Certainly, the best book I have read in some time.

[kirmuriel-1 · Calificación: 5 de 5 estrellas]

So beautiful, and sad. One moment you think everything is lost, but then is not, and then it is worst than you thought.

[sullywriter_1 · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

A grim, sometimes satirical portrait of life under a totalitarian regime in an unidentified Latin American country.

[deebee1_1 · Calificación: 3 de 5 estrellas]

It is approaching nighttime, and in the porch of the cathedral of the capital of an unnamed Latin American country, the beggars and the most destitute of the city, gather to inspect their miserly belongings, nickel coins, and scraps of food before appropriating empty spaces for themselves to sleep in the night in. Their sleep was punctuated only by the sound of the footsteps of police patrolling the square below and the click of the sentinel's arms at the gates of the presidential palace. But tonight, something happened which would turn their miserable existence into something even more pitiful and horrifying. They were witness to a murder committed on the steps of cathedral. And the dead man was no ordinary person, for he was one or formerly one of the President's close allies.

The novel opens on this scene and sets the stage for the dark and ominous mood that pervades the country under the dictatorship. From this scene, the story shifts its focus on the President's favorite, a man called Angel Face, who was tasked to take care of the "disappearance" of General Canales, also a close associate of the President but who recently fell into disgrace. We do not know the exact nature of his offense, but he is now considered to be a rebel. The complications occur when Angel Face, in attempting to convince the General to flee (this was his specific assignment), was preempted by the arrival of other military who took the General away by force, and was left with the General's daughter, Camila. Angel Face himself was ruthless and cruel, he was not top hatchet man for nothing, but seeing the injustice of it all and the effect on the devastated young woman evoked in him a sense of duty and compassion, and he grows to love her. He knew what he was in for, but his devotion to Camila and now awareness of truth and justice brooked no halfhearted commitment on his part. Angel Face marries her, supposedly with the blessings of the President, but he knew too that his days were numbered. He is now the enemy. Many other incidents took place, highlighting the terror that dictated the actions of the citizens -- fear of being spied on, of displeasing those in power, of falling out of the favour of the President. Horrific deeds were widespread and commonplace and were never talked about. Years pass, the President continues to be at the height of his power, opponents are nowhere to be found for they have all been crushed, and a sinister calm pervades. We see a woman with a child, still waiting in hope for a certain prisoner to be released. But we know it is a hopeless wait. Deception, secrecy and lies hound our protagonists until the very end.