Who Is Rigoberta Menchu?

by Greg Grandin

In 1984, indigenous rights activist Rigoberta Menchú published a harrowing account of life under a military dictatorship in Guatemala. That autobiography— I, Rigoberta Menchú —transformed the study and understanding of modern Guatemalan history and brought its author international renown. She won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1992. At that point, she became the target of historians seeking to discredit her testimony and deny US complicity in the genocidal policies of the Guatemalan regime.

Told here is the story of an unlettered woman who became the spokesperson for her people and clashed with the intellectual apologists of the world’s most powerful nation. What happened to her autobiography speaks volumes about power, perception and race on the world stage. This critical companion to Menchú’s work will disabuse many readers of the lies that have been told about this courageous individual.

Genres: Latin American History, History

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Greg Grandin is the author of Fordlandia, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. A Professor of History at New York University, Grandin has published a number of other award-winning books, including Empire's Workshop, The Last Colonial Massacre, and The Blood of Guatemala.

Toni Morrison called Grandin's new work, The Empire of Necessity, "compelling, brilliant and necessary." Based on years of research on four continents, the book narrates the history of a slave-ship revolt that inspired Herman Melville's other masterpiece, Benito Cereno. Philip Gourevitch describes it as a "rare book in which the drama of the action and the drama of ideas are equally measured, a work of history and of literary reflection that is as urgent as it is timely."

Grandin has served on the United Nations Truth Commission investigating the Guatemalan Civil War and has written for the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The New Statesman, the Guardian, the London Review of Books, and The New York Times.

He received his BA from Brooklyn College, CUNY, in 1992 and his PhD from Yale in 1999. He has been a guest on Democracy Now!, The Charlie Rose Show, and the Chris Hayes Show.

Reviews

[Michelle]

The title is very misleading to this book . The book is mostly about the apparent racism the western world has when sharing stories of indigenous activists along with how the western world’s definition of genocide can make genocides hard to prove. They then use the genocide of the Mayan ppl in Guatemala as an example. I think this book as really good content and would be great if they maybe elaborated more on it. There was not much knowledge of who Rigoberta Manchu is. The book talks about the genocide and basically how the U.S. and the Guatemalan government dodge calling it a genocide . The end then has the U.N’s commission findings of the genocide. I wished they gave this book a different title. Def sad at times but important to read.

[nikita]

Book 2 if the semester finished. Very accessible reading. Makes you ask a lot of questions.

[Rick]

I found the debate about the accuracy of I, Rigoberta Menchu utterly irrelevant to the political issues of massive governmental violence against the indigenous people of Guatemala. This book doesn't really engage that debate, but provides a kind of "life and times." And -- as an aside -- if "accuracy" were the measure of memoir, nobody would ever read The Autobiography of Malcolm X ever again. But it isn't, and we do.