what is Guatemalan literature?
The essential background of Guatemalan literature lies in the country's Mayan heritage, conjugated with its colonial history. Although European genres and traditions of writing were implemented in various parts of America already in the 16th century, what is most often identified as Guatemalan literature in the awareness of the global readers has to do with the 20th-century political turmoil. The backdrop of civil wars, political repression, and social inequality has heavily influenced literature, inspiring works that critique power structures. Just like in other parts of Hispanophone America, the crudness of political intent is often veiled by the aesthetics of magic realism.
The most prominent Guatemalan author is, of course, Miguel Ángel Asturias, the Nobel Prize winner in 1967, whose works, such as El Señor Presidente and Men of Maize, reflect the complexities of Guatemalan identity and the struggles against authoritarianism.
Another notable figure, especially after the chapter dedicated to her in David Damrosch's What is World Literature? (2003), is Rigoberta Menchú, a renowned indigenous rights activist and Nobel laureate (1992). Her autobiography, I, Rigoberta Menchú, sheds light on the plight of the indigenous people.
Other, emerging names are not resounding, yet deserve attention: Omar López is known for his poetry and narrative that often intertwine personal experiences with broader social and political contexts of migration. María José Escobar is a poet and writer whose works delve into personal and social topics, including feminism and the exploration of memory in relation to Guatemala’s past. Natalia Carrillo is the author of stories centered on female experiences and perspectives, addressing issues related to gender and cultural identity. Luis de La Torre writes short stories and novels that reflect the realities of urban life in Guatemala. Jaime Figueroa, a writer and journalist, is known for his politically charged narratives that explore the implications of Guatemala’s turbulent history on modern society. Rafael C. Rivas blends fiction with local history and social commentary. Karla Hernández writes both poetry and short fiction, often focusing on the experiences of young women in Guatemala. Her writing is marked by its lyrical quality and poignant observations of everyday life.
The most prominent Guatemalan author is, of course, Miguel Ángel Asturias, the Nobel Prize winner in 1967, whose works, such as El Señor Presidente and Men of Maize, reflect the complexities of Guatemalan identity and the struggles against authoritarianism.
Another notable figure, especially after the chapter dedicated to her in David Damrosch's What is World Literature? (2003), is Rigoberta Menchú, a renowned indigenous rights activist and Nobel laureate (1992). Her autobiography, I, Rigoberta Menchú, sheds light on the plight of the indigenous people.
Other, emerging names are not resounding, yet deserve attention: Omar López is known for his poetry and narrative that often intertwine personal experiences with broader social and political contexts of migration. María José Escobar is a poet and writer whose works delve into personal and social topics, including feminism and the exploration of memory in relation to Guatemala’s past. Natalia Carrillo is the author of stories centered on female experiences and perspectives, addressing issues related to gender and cultural identity. Luis de La Torre writes short stories and novels that reflect the realities of urban life in Guatemala. Jaime Figueroa, a writer and journalist, is known for his politically charged narratives that explore the implications of Guatemala’s turbulent history on modern society. Rafael C. Rivas blends fiction with local history and social commentary. Karla Hernández writes both poetry and short fiction, often focusing on the experiences of young women in Guatemala. Her writing is marked by its lyrical quality and poignant observations of everyday life.
I have readRyszard Kapuściński, Dlaczego zginął Karl von Spreti | Why Karl von Spreti Died (1970)
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silence
As far as Wikipedia advises me, Dlaczego zginął Karl von Spreti, a Guatemalan essay of Ryszard Kapuściński first published in December 1970, has never been translated into English. I read it in Polish, of course, in a 2010 edition of collected writings of the journalist. He was in Mexico at the time of the event that provoked this little book, yet claimed a degree of insight into Guatemalan affairs. Nonetheless, my first reaction was a slight disbelief (does he present those things with a certain caricatural exaggeration, knowing that his public is essentially uninterested in the world, uninclined to take such things emotionally? or what he says is to be taken as a literal truth?). Certainly, his position of a journalist from the East gave him a comfortable position for whatever is the criticism of the United States and the CIA. Certain images, certain type of sensibility (such as depicting Rafael Carrera, the first president of Guatemala in 1837, as someone who, drunk dead, would lay prostrate in a church and fall asleep in this position) gives me the feeling of a Polish pen.
I would say that must have been a bias; the text is extremely strong of flavour, full of dead bodies, full of desperation, full of compassion, not for the kidnapped German ambassador, but for those who saw in the act of kidnapping him the only chance of saving their imprisoned companions. Yet it is in favour of the forgotten cause, of people whose lives had been sold for something as prosaic, as unimportant as a fruit company.
Kapuściński paints a broad picture, as I said, starting with the independence of the country, and remaining pitiless with its successive presidents, remaining as rogue as they were illiterate. There are many interests in the game, not only that of the American fruit company interested in keeping the best cultivable terrains, but also those of the white, many of them German settlers, against the native population. It is the tragedy of the barefoot Indians that Kapuściński maintains firmly in the focus. Their salaries of just one dollar a month (could this piece of information be exact?!). Their enslavement. The constant danger of being imprisoned without a trial, without a clear accusation. The Kafkian hunting for the (non-existent) communists.
But the strongest moment of the whole textual construction is just the incipit, the vivisection of silence: jest to cisza, za którą coś się kryje (p. 20), a silence that hides something. It is an absence with indexical value, the negative sign of a crime, of a death, of a catastrophe. I remember to have heard that kind of silence on several occasions, in Poland. Some of those occasions more recent than one might imagine. In that inverted logic of all authoritarian regimes: kto bardziej niewinny - tym bardziej winny. I dlatego: kto bardziej niewinny - tym więcej się boi (p. 19). More innocent you are - more guilty you are. This is why: more innocent you are, more afraid you are. Perhaps one needs to be a Pole, or a Russian, or a Ukrainian, to fully understand this logic, unavailable to those born in democracies, persuaded that there must always be some kind of law. Even the Germans failed to save their ambassador, because they failed to fathom the depth of lawlessness of such a place as Guatemala.
Ryszard Kapuściński, Dlaczego zginął Karl von Spreti, Warszawa, Czytelnik, 2010.
Kraków, 2.08.2021.
I would say that must have been a bias; the text is extremely strong of flavour, full of dead bodies, full of desperation, full of compassion, not for the kidnapped German ambassador, but for those who saw in the act of kidnapping him the only chance of saving their imprisoned companions. Yet it is in favour of the forgotten cause, of people whose lives had been sold for something as prosaic, as unimportant as a fruit company.
Kapuściński paints a broad picture, as I said, starting with the independence of the country, and remaining pitiless with its successive presidents, remaining as rogue as they were illiterate. There are many interests in the game, not only that of the American fruit company interested in keeping the best cultivable terrains, but also those of the white, many of them German settlers, against the native population. It is the tragedy of the barefoot Indians that Kapuściński maintains firmly in the focus. Their salaries of just one dollar a month (could this piece of information be exact?!). Their enslavement. The constant danger of being imprisoned without a trial, without a clear accusation. The Kafkian hunting for the (non-existent) communists.
But the strongest moment of the whole textual construction is just the incipit, the vivisection of silence: jest to cisza, za którą coś się kryje (p. 20), a silence that hides something. It is an absence with indexical value, the negative sign of a crime, of a death, of a catastrophe. I remember to have heard that kind of silence on several occasions, in Poland. Some of those occasions more recent than one might imagine. In that inverted logic of all authoritarian regimes: kto bardziej niewinny - tym bardziej winny. I dlatego: kto bardziej niewinny - tym więcej się boi (p. 19). More innocent you are - more guilty you are. This is why: more innocent you are, more afraid you are. Perhaps one needs to be a Pole, or a Russian, or a Ukrainian, to fully understand this logic, unavailable to those born in democracies, persuaded that there must always be some kind of law. Even the Germans failed to save their ambassador, because they failed to fathom the depth of lawlessness of such a place as Guatemala.
Ryszard Kapuściński, Dlaczego zginął Karl von Spreti, Warszawa, Czytelnik, 2010.
Kraków, 2.08.2021.
