Décimas of the President, an alternative reading of Mister President, by Miguel Ángel Asturias

Abstract

This work gathers the context around the novel book El Señor Presidente
(Mister President), published in 1946 by the Guatemalan writer Miguel
Ángel Asturias. It briefly looks into History of Guatemala and its State, relevant
details about president Manuel Estrada Cabrera, and the author’s life.
It addresses some general aspects of the novel book, to later refer to specific
topics from my personal view. The paper has the particularity of showing a
parallel accompaniment for the reading process. It consists of writing poetry
verses according to the chapter structure of the novel, mostly décimas espinelas3
as an initial goal. Writing verses seeks to map out, reflect on, describe,
or condense relevant aspects about topics, characters, and events. In some
cases, difficulties forced me resort to a smaller verse structure called redondilla4.
Verses cover two of the three parts of the novel, and resulted in 25
décimas and 7 redondillas. They are attached to this work.