The Shadow of the Strongman

"[Guzmán] throws the cruel spotlight on all the treachery, the sycophancy, and corruption of generals, politicians, and labor leaders; here is oil graft, murder, plotting, the vileness of the local political and military scenes pinned down by the dagger of truth . . . from the façade gilded with fine words regarding the freeing of the peasants to the grimy back stairs of Mexico’s political edifice."
—Carleton Beals, in Saturday Review of Literature (1930)
"Guzmán was uniquely qualified to offer his critique of the Mexican political scene. His resume reveals a man who lived the Revolution as military commander, advisor, confidant, emissary, politician, academic, and writer. The style of The Shadow of the Strongman borrows from each of those diverse experiences to become, in many ways, a mixed genre that hovers between novel and biography, invention and history. Great reading for anyone interested in Mexico.
    "The novel is not easy to translate. Guzmán is writing about political and historical events that require realistic accuracy while also incorporating complex and poetic descriptions of people and places. Pellón is to be congratulated for his translation that understands this duality."
—Douglas J. Weatherford, Brigham Young University
"At last, an English translation of Martín Luis Guzmán's great novel of the Mexican Revolution! Readers will be intrigued not only by Guzmán's representation of authoritarianism and personalism, but also his nuanced and lyrical descriptions of Mexico City in the 1920s. Pellón's translation is a marvelous piece of work."
—Jürgen Buchenau, University of North Carolina at Charlotte