Tyrant Memory by Horacio Castellanos Moya
by Sampsonia Way / July 22, 2011 / No comments
Translated by Katherine Silver
The tyrant of Horacio Castellanos Moya’s ambitious new novel is based on the actual pro-Nazi mystic Maximiliano Hernández Martínez — also known as the Warlock — who came to power in El Salvador in 1932. An attempted coup in April, 1944, failed to remove him from power, 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.
Sampsonia Way presents fragments from Tyrant Memory selected by the author.
From Tyrant Memory, By Horacio Castellanos Moya, translated by Katherine Silver.
Copyright ©2008 by Horacio Castellanos Moya. Translation copyright ©2011 by Katherine Silver. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing.
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