The tyrant of Horacio Castellanos Moya s ambitious new novel is the actual pro-Nazi mystic Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez 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, Haydee 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 Haydee 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 coun- try s history in the destiny of one family."