Rigoberta Menchu

Rigoberta Menchú Tum is a member of the Maya-Quiché Indigenous community in Guatemala who has devoted her life to protesting the atrocities committed against Indigenous people in her native country. Through her activism in a variety of political groups from an early age, she has sought to educate poor Guatemalans about economic exploitation and resistance to violent repression. After several members of their family were violently killed by the Guatemalan army, Rigoberta’s siblings decided to join the guerrillas fighting the government, while she continued her campaigns of education and training for vulnerable communities in the countryside. After being forced into exile in Mexico, she published her autobiographical book I, Rigoberta Menchú (1983), based on her interview with Elisabeth Burgos. This book had a huge international impact, bringing to light the brutal military violence that was oppressing Indian communities in Guatemala. As a result of this international attention, Rigoberta Menchú received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 for her work as a social justice leader and an advocate for Indigenous rights in Latin America. She became the youngest person to ever receive this prize. Since then, she has received many prizes over the course of her lifetime for her role as a social justice activist. Although she has returned to Guatemala on various occasions, death threats have forced her into exile. She has continued to play an important role in Guatemalan politics, taking part in peace negotiations between the government and the guerrillas at the end of the Guatemalan Civil War in 1996. She has also taken on an international role as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, defending the rights of Indigenous peoples around the world. Elisabeth Burgos-Debray is a Venezuelan anthropologist, historian, and writer. She met Rigoberta Menchú in Paris in 1982 and interviewed her for a week, in order to collect the courageous young activist’s life story. Although she structured Rigoberta Menchú’s life narrative, she did not modify her interviewee’s words, thus allowing the final text to faithfully reflect Rigoberta Menchú’s self-expression.