David Unger received Guatemala’s Miguel Angel Asturias National Literature Prize for lifetime achievement in 2014. Novels include In My Eyes, You Are Beautiful (Mosaic Press, 2023), The Mastermind, (Akashic Books, 2016)  [translated into nine languages including Spanish, Arabic, Italian, Turkish and Polish], The Price of Escape (Akashic Books: 2011) and Life in the Damn Tropics (Wisconsin University Press, 2004).

He has translated 16 titles including Folktales for Fearless Girls (Penguin, 2019), The Popol Vuh, (Guatemala’s pre-Columbian creation myth) and books by Rigoberta Menchú (Guatemala), Enrique Lihn (Chile), Silvia Molina (Mexico), Nicanor Parra (Chile), Ana Maria Machado (Brazil), Elena Garro (Mexico) and Teresa Cárdenas (Cuba). 

In 2022, Penguin Classics published his re-translation of Guatemalan Literature Nobelist Miguel Angel Asturias’ Mr. President, with an introduction by Mario Vargas Llosa in July of 2022 to glowing reviews.  He is the Director of the Publishing Certificate Program at The City College of NY and taught translation in the MFA Program for many years.