The subject of repressive dictatorship treated in Conversation in the Cathedral has been dealt with also in such wellknown novels as El Senor Presidente (1975; original in Spanish, 1946) by the Guatemalan Miguel Angel Asturias and The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975; El otono del patriarca, 1975) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Both novels depict the devastating effect of a dictatorship on the country's citizenry.