Rigoberta Menchu and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans: New Foreword by Elizabeth Burgos

by Stoll,David

• ISBN13: 9780813343969
• ISBN10: 0813343968
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2007-12-25
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Rigoberta Menchu is a living legend, a young woman who said that her odyssey from a Mayan Indian village to revolutionary exile was "the story of all poor Guatemalans." By turning herself into an everywoman, she became a powerful symbol for 500 years of indigenous resistance to colonialism. Her testimony,I, Rigoberta Menchu, denounced atrocities by the Guatemalan army and propelled her to the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize. But her story was not the eyewitness account that she claimed. In this hotly debated book, key points of which have been corroborated by theNew York Times, David Stoll compares a cult text with local testimony from Rigoberta Menchu's hometown. His reconstruction of her story goes to the heart of debates over political correctness and identity politics and provides a dramatic illustration of the rebirth of the sacred in the postmodern academy.This expanded edition includes a new foreword from Elizabeth Burgos, the editor ofI, Rigoberta Menchu, as well as a new afterword from Stoll, who discusses Rigoberta Menchu's recent bid for the Guatemalan presidency and addresses the many controversies and debates that have arisen since the book was first published.

Author Biography

David Stoll teaches anthropology at Middlebury College. His other books include Is Latin America Turning Protestant? and Between Two Armies in the Ixil Towns of Guatemala.

Table of Contents

Foreword to the 2008 Edition: How I Became Persona Non Grata	p. ix
Preface	p. xviii
Acknowledgments	p. xxvi
Chronology	p. xxviii
The Story of All Poor Guatemalans	p. 1
Vicente Menchu and His Village
Uspantan as an Agricultural Frontier	p. 15
The Struggle for Chimel	p. 29
Popular Revolutionary War
Revolutionary Justice Comes to Uspantan	p. 43
The Death of Petrocinio	p. 63
The Massacre at the Spanish Embassy	p. 71
Vicente Menchu and the Committee for Campesino Unity	p. 89
Vicente Menchu and the Guerrilla Army of the Poor	p. 107
The Death of Juana Tum and the Destruction of Chimel	p. 125
The Death Squads in Uspantan	p. 141
Vicente's Daughter and the Reinvention of Chimel
Where Was Rigoberta?	p. 159
Rigoberta Joins the Revolutionary Movement	p. 167
The Construction of I, Rigoberta Menchu	p. 177
Rigoberta's Secret	p. 189
The Laureate Goes Home
The Campaign for the Nobel	p. 203
The Lonely Life of a Nobel Laureate	p. 219
Rigoberta and Redemption	p. 231
The New Chimel	p. 249
Rigoberta Leaves the Guerrilla Movement	p. 265
Epitaph for an Eyewitness Account	p. 273
Afterword to the 2008 Edition: A Parallel Universe	p. 285
Notes	p. 303
Bibliography	p. 331
Index	p. 343
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