Juan José Arévalo

(1904 - 1990)

A former literature professor, Juan José Arévalo was elected president of Guatemala in 1944. Comparing himself to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he spent his six years in office implementing reforms intended to benefit workers and the country’s indigenous population, as well as avoiding coup attempts. After his successor was deposed in a U.S.-backed military coup, Arévalo published an anti-imperialist allegory titled The Shark and the Sardines. “This book, friends of the North, has been read all over Latin America,” he writes in the introduction. “Read it now yourselves and accept it as a voice of alarm addressed to the great North American people who are still unaware of how many crimes have been committed in their name.”