Rigoberta Menchu Controversy

By: Arias, Arturo

Book Overview

A balanced appraisal of the bitter debate surrounding the autobiography of Guatemala's 1992 Nobel Peace Prize recipient.

Guatemalan indigenous rights activist Rigoberta Mench first came to international prominence following the 1983 publication of her memoir, I, Rigoberta Mench , which chronicled in compelling detail the violence and misery that she and her people suffered during her country's brutal civil war. The book focused world attention on Guatemala and led to her being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992. In 1999, a book by David Stoll challenged the veracity of key details in Mench 's account, generating a storm of controversy. Journalists and scholars squared off regarding whether Mench had lied about her past and, if so, what that would mean about the larger truths revealed in her book.

In The Rigoberta Mench Controversy, Arturo Arias has assembled a casebook that offers a balanced perspective. The first section of this volume collects the primary documents-newspaper articles, interviews, and official statements-in which the debate raged, many translated into English for the first time. In the second section, a distinguished group of international scholars assesses the political, historical, and cultural contexts of the debate and considers its implications for such issues as the "culture wars," historical truth, and the politics of memory. Included is a new essay by David Stoll in which he responds to his critics.

Contributors: Luis Aceituno; Juan Jes s Azn rez; John Beverley, U of Pittsburgh; Allen Carey-Webb, Western Michigan U; Margarita Carrera; Duncan Earle, U of Texas, El Paso; Carolina Escobar Sarti; Claudia Ferman, U of Richmond; Dina Fern ndez Garc a; Eduardo Galeano; Dante Liano, U of Milan; W. George Lovell, Queen's U, Canada; Christopher H. Lutz; Octavio Mart ; Victor D. Montejo, UC Davis; Rosa Montero; Mario Roberto Morales, U of Northern Iowa; Jorge Palmieri; Daphne Patai, U of Massachusetts, Amherst; Mary Louise Pratt, Stanford U; Danilo Rodr guez; Ileana Rodr guez, Ohio State U; Larry Rohter; Jorge Skinner-Kle ; Elzbieta Sklodowska, Washington U; Carol A. Smith, UC Davis; Doris Sommer, Harvard U; David Stoll, Middlebury College; Manuel V squez Montalb n; and Kay B. Warren, Harvard U.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0816636265
• ISBN13: 9780816636266
• Release Date: March 2001
• Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 1.31 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

All-Opinions-Accepted, No-Holds-Barred

What makes this book important is that every essay is different. Some contributors side with Rigoberta Menchu, others with David Stoll, while still others take a bigger picture view and otherwise make significant contributions to the debate. What comes out of this book is that Mr. Stoll did not clearly explain the important points he was trying to make in "Rigoberta Menchu and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans" (otherwise the controversy surrounding his book would not have been so large) and that he left some important points out, such as why the Guatemalan Army committed large-scale massacres in areas with no documented guerrilla presense, or the reality that there are land squabbles between different indigenous groups due to the fact that white ladinos own a vast majority of the most arable land. Due to these shortcomings, the bottom line for many contributors to this book is that Mr. Stoll takes responsibility away from the Guatemalan army and government just at a time when specific apologies and reparations from them are so urgently needed to move the country forward after the 30 year civil war and subsequent peace accords. At the end of the book, however, Mr. Stoll offers a response that more clearly spells out the points he was trying to make, the main one being that thousands of indigenous voices were not included in the nation's dialogue due to the guerrilla's effort to use Rigoberta as the country's only indigenous spokesperson. This book includes essential background information about "I, Rigoberta Menchu", "Rigoberta Menchu and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans" and other aspects of the debate. Raises many universal themes and issues important outside of Guatemala.