The President
"Asturias has achieved in a splendid manner a grotesque and almost asphyxiating conception of the total state. When the reader puts down the novel, he does so with a feeling of compassion and, at the same time, relief that he has not had to live through similar circumstances."  --T. B. Irving,Inter-American Review of Bibliography"Asturias leaves no doubt about what it is like to be tortured, or what it is like to work for a man who is both omnipotent and depraved."  --Times Literary Supplement