Publisher's Synopsis

A novel whose time has come: the Nobel Prize-winning author of Mr. President's visionary epic of ecological devastation, capitalist exploitation, and Indigenous wisdom, now available again for its 75th anniversary with a new introduction and with a foreword by Pulitzer Prize winner Héctor Tobar

A Penguin Classic


Deep in the mountain forests of Guatemala, a community of Indigenous Mayans-the "men of maize"-serves as stewards to sacred corn crops. When profiteering outsiders encroach on their territory and threaten to abuse the fertile land, they enter a bloody struggle to protect their way of life. Blurring the lines between history and mythology, Nobel Prize winner Miguel Ángel Asturias's lush, dream-like work offers a prescient warning against the loss of ancestral wisdom and the environmental destruction set in motion by colonial oppression and capitalist greed.

Book information

ISBN: 9780143138402
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Imprint: Penguin Classics
Pub date:
Language: English
Number of pages: 320
Weight: 234g
Height: 197mm
Width: 129mm
Spine width: 13mm