Good Scribes Only #30 🇬🇹⚔️ The President by Miguel Angel Asturias
You don’t always need a plane ticket to travel; sometimes, all you need is a book. Fiction allows us explore worlds beyond our own, taking us out of life’s everyday tangles, and allowing us to move forward with a wider perspective. So rather than travel physically, Good Scribes Only is traveling to Europe, Africa, Central America, North America, Oceania, the Middle East, and Asia by way of literature. Third stop, Guatemala!
The President by Miguel Angel Asturias is as ruthless as it is hilarious. It chronicles the tale of a cruel dictator and his plots to eliminate just about every political opponent in his path. The book has long been lauded as one of, if not the greatest, depiction of the harmful affects of totalitarianism within a country, and its people.
In The President, Asturias draws from personal experience as a journalist in an oppressive time in Guatemala's history, but it's not as dark as some other books we've discussed. He uses humor, satire, and absurdism to illustrate the kinds of governmental transgressions he dealt with, and how living in a police state warps an individual’s psyche. Asturias was famously outspoken against all forms of injustice in Guatemala, and it earned him a reputation that brought both awards and imprisonment. But the man was clearly a trailblazer for his time: In his Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech, for example, Asturias vowed that his work would "continue to reflect the voice of the Latin American people and their problems." Part satire, part who-dunnit crime drama, part social commentary, The President is a great read for anyone interested in social commentary and/or in that bizarre (and unfortunate) moment in Latin American history.
Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Sometimes even traveling to a place doesn't permit you to see it for how it really is for those who live there. Fiction, on the other hand, can. And thus, season 3 is about widening our perspective. We hope you're coming along can help do the same. Be sure to check out the Episode Cheat Sheet for an overview.
We hope you enjoy this discussion about The President by Miguel Angel Asturias
Episode Notes
0-5 min — Intro
5-15 min — Casting the movie
10-15 min — Part 1 plot summary
15-20 min — Why use humor?
20-25 min — Depiction of totalitarianism
25-30 min — Viewing culture from the outside
30-35 min — Character overview
35-40 min — Part 2 plot summary
40-45 min — Political history in Latin America
45-50 min — The power of fiction
50-55 min — Plot conclusion
55-60 min — Wrap up