Guatemalan-born novelist David Unger was awarded his country’s Miguel Ángel Asturias National Prize in Literature for 2014, despite writing exclusively in English. He is the author of the novels The Price of Escape, Life in the Damn Tropics: A Novel, Para mi, eres divina and Ni chicha, Ni limonada (Cuentos). His short stories and essays have appeared in Words Without Borders, Guernica, KGBBarLit, and Playboy Mexico. He has translated fourteen books from Spanish into English. This chapter is an excerpt from The Mastermind, to be published by Akashic Books on April 6.