[1] In critic Jean Franco's description, the book "gave lyrical recreations of Guatemalan folklore many of which drew their inspiration from pre-Columbian and colonial sources".

Leyendas de Guatemala is made up of a series of short stories, which transform the oral legends of popular culture into relevant textual manifestations.

[7] The story begins with a winding road and a cart approaching an unnamed city and focuses on a pair of goitered elders, Don Chepe and Niña Tina, who are laden with the country's heritage.

[22] The textual interplay between Cuero de Oro and don Chepe and Niña Tina can also be interpreted as representative of a child who is searching for the roots of his identity, questioning those who have access to this knowledge of another (mythical) time and space.

[23] (Legend of the Volcano) Leyenda del Volcán teaches that destruction is always followed by rebirth,[16] implying that Maya-Quiche culture can be reborn.

[28] One of the six men, who is named Nido (the word for "nest" in Spanish), is the only being that remains and is ordered by a trinity, consisting of a saint, white lily, and a child, to build a temple.

[24] Through the description of how Madre Elvira de San Francisco was able to rid herself of her braid, Asturias demonstrates how humanity possesses the means to liberate itself from the "yoke" which binds it, regardless of how oppressive it may be.

[30] The black road, which in Mayan tradition leads to the underworld, trades part of its soul with the merchant of Priceless Jewels, who then uses in exchange for the most beautiful slave.

[46] Asturias contrasts the two cultures; he describes the natives as connected to the natural world (their arms green with plant blood[47]) and associates them with abundance and a sense of richness (they had flowers, fruits, birds, beehives, feathers, gold and precious stones[48]), while emphasizing the scarcity and want of the Europeans by repeating the preposition "without" over and over again in their context.

The tricky mirror which appears in the story (which confuses Guacamayo and Cuculcán about what is "real") is a metaphor for a brutal relativism which Asturias introduces in order to express the dual and complementary character of reality.

Asturias bases his work on the traditions and legends of his ancestors and tries to provide an accurate representation of Native American culture,[9] while mixing it with European colonial elements.

[60] His writing style is unique because he incorporates Western techniques with thematic and stylistic elements from indigenous literature,[9] as well as combining oral and textual manners of narration.

[9] It can be argued that Asturias takes elements from the traditional culture “to demonstrate that the future of his country depends on the recognition and validation of the indigenous heritage”.

This implementation of a new kind of logic based in the realm of the mythical brings Asturias' stories close to the sphere of the literary concept of magical realism.

[78] In a figurative sense this is actually a true fact, as Guatemalan culture can be seen as superposed over a Mayan heritage, in the ruins of the arrival of the Spanish.

[79] Indeed, even the literal interpretation contains truth, as it was directly over the ruins of Palenque and Copán that the Spanish cities were raised, creating something like a stratified tower of Babel.

[89] In this sense, Leyendas can be viewed as a reaction against racial purification and in favor of a cultural conciliation represented by the hybrid identity,[90] achieving this via balancing popular tradition with the presence of the pre-Hispanic world.

Symbolically the Latin American image establishes a binarism in the power relations between the Spanish hegemony of masculinity, while associating the indigenous sub-alternity with the feminine.

[4] Equally important was Asturias' involvement with the French-based Latin Press Agency, or Prensa Latina, an activist group which fought for the "revitalization of 'Latin' power".

[99] The time spent in both France and Cuba introduced him to significant contacts and enabled Asturias to rethink the origins and identity of his country incorporating Mayan-Quiché culture.

A rapid transformation in his work is seen when comparing Asturias's dissertation, "El problema social del indio", written in the 1920s, which "focused on the concept of the mestizaje or the support of foreign immigration to regenerate the Indian, and reeks with prejudices".

[104][3] For example, "La leyenda de Tatuana" is based on the Quiché legend of Chimalmat, but re-written to incorporate the pre-Hispanic myth with the new anecdotes and characters of the colonial era.

[106] Asturias has been described as a "poet-author" whose unique literary abilities have created a narrative of the evolution of Guatemala in a way that traverses the boundaries of a poem, story, legend or work of prose.

[108] This translation also succeeded in gaining the admiration of Paul Valéry,[108] who wrote a letter about Leyendas de Guatemala that has been used as a prologue to the book in certain editions.

Therefore, Henighan thinks that Leyendas de Guatemala is both genuine and fake; Asturias' accomplishment in creating the illusion of fiction was entirely stimulated by the perceived expectation of the French audience.

However, Henighan claims that "Leyendas de Guatemala deforms the Orientalist assumption because here the 'explorer' transmitting the magical world back to the Parisian readers is a native Guatemalan himself".

[109] He says that Asturias uses strategies to persuade the validity and trustworthiness of his writing to the European audience he targets; this is the reason he included pictures, the introductory preface by Paul Valéry, impersonal narration, and disclaimers such as 'that no one believes the legends of the past'.

Asturias received much criticism for his earlier essay "El problema social del indio" (1923), which saw no future for a Guatemalan identity based on its Mayan heritage, and encouraged a progressive ideology to take over.

[115] He goes on to argue that the young Asturias made undeniably racist claims in this essay, which cannot be deleted, and Leyendas de Guatemala does not entirely break from such an attitude either.

[116] Lienhard compares the way in which Asturias re-wrote the creation myths of Guatemala to that of Soviet educational propaganda, claiming that he progressively manipulated the culture and the collective memory of a people to serve the interest of a State.