Who Is Rigoberta Menchu?

In 1984, Nobel Peace Prize–winner and indigenous rights activistRigobertaMench￡ published I, RigobertaMench￡, her autobiographical account of life in Guatemala undera military dictatorship to great acclaim. The book rapidly transformedthe study and understanding of modern Guatemalan history. Since then,her memoir has increasingly become a target for rightwing historians andcommentators seeking to discredit Mench￡’s account and to deny thegenocide carried out by the Guatemalan military regime with US support.Greg Grandin, in this crucial accompaniment to Mench￡’s work, takes onher critics to set the story straight. He investigates the historicalcontextand political realities that underlie Mench￡’s past and the ongoingdebatesurrounding it, in this substantial new work on Guatemalan history.

Greg Grandin is the author of Empire’s Workshop, The Last Colonial Massacre, Who is Rigoberta Menchu?, the award-winning The Blood of Guatemala, and the 2009 National Book Awards finalist Fordlandia. A professor of history at New York University and a Guggenheim fellow, Grandin has served on the United Nations Truth Commission investigating the Guatemalan Civil War and has written for the Los Angeles Times, Nation, New Statesman, and New York Times.