Jorge Ibargüengoitia (1928-1983) did not write to make people laugh. He said so. Yet he is typically labeled as humorist, satirist, and parodist. In Kill the Lion!, his near-slapstick tale of attempts to assassinate an aging dictator, Ibargüengoitia subdues humor (laughing in recognition), precludes satire (impaling to instruct), and achieves mature, clement comedy (smiling in acceptance, acknowledging with wisdom). Even so, the book's conclusion allows for heartbreak and penalty, but with a long sigh, not a moan. The novel distinctively orbits alone --rather than revolving with the cauterizing constellation of Latin American novels about dictators-- like a midsummer's moon: cooler, wisely diverted, humanly indulgent.

Shortly before her death, Helen Lane, most literary of literary translators from Spanish, rendered this novel mentally, only noting certain choises, queries, an observations between the lines of her copy. Ronald Christ has followed her penciled lead, attempting to preserve and fulfill her graces as well as to honor Ibargüengoitia's highly civilized political capriccio, grounded at its most fanciful in demandingly exact, verifiable particulars.