Tyrant Memory
ABOUT
THE BOOK
The tyrant of Horacio Castellanos Moya’s ambitious new novel is the actual pro-Nazi mystic Maximiliano Hernández Martínez – known as the Warlock – who came to power in El Salvador in 1932. An attempted coup in April, 1944, failed, but a general strike in May finally forced him out of office. Tyrant Memory takes place during the month between the coup and the strike. Its protagonist, Haydée Aragon, is a well-off woman, whose husband is a political prisoner and whose son, Clemente, after prematurely announcing the dictator’s death over national radio during the failed coup, is forced to flee when the very much alive Warlock starts to ruthlessly hunt down his enemies. The novel moves between Haydée’s political awakening in diary entries and Clemente’s frantic and often hysterically comic efforts to escape capture. Tyrant Memory – sharp, grotesque, moving, and often hilariously funny – is an unforgettable incarnation of a country’s history in the destiny of one family.
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Katherine
Silver
Katherine Silver has been a professional literary translator for more than 30 years, and has translated and published more than 30 books and assorted texts by mostly contemporary Spanish and Latin American authors.
Katherine Silver has been a professional literary translator for more than 30 years, and has translated and published more than 30 books and assorted texts by mostly contemporary Spanish and Latin American authors.
NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS
His novella Desmonoronamiento in its French edition was selected for the Prix Courrier International 2010. Work translated into German. National Novel Award 1988, American University Jose Simeon Canas. Romulo Gallegos Prize Finalist 2001.