MIGUEL Angel Asturias' Mulata de tal (1963) is what Spanish1 speaking critics are given to calling a novela-hiperbole, and it must be treated as such. No respectable critical approach to this novel has yet been found, which is partly why so little has been written about it, and yet its intrinsic interest and its importance for an understanding of Asturias' literary development are unmistakable. No critic has made any serious effort to discuss the pre-Columbian background to Asturias' fiction, which, despite certain interpretations relying on Greek and Babylonian mythology, would seem the only sound approach. Indeed, as far as Mulata de tal is concerned, there can be no question that influences are largely preColumbian and wholly American.l There are innumerable elements on almost every page which are familiar to anyone who has read the Popol Vuh, the Anales de los Xahil, or El libro de los libros de Chilam Balam. The real problem is to decide exactly where each element comes from, what it represented to the Mayas (or, in the case of contemporary material, what it represents to their descendants)., and