Rigoberta Menchú

Who is Rigoberta Menchú?

Rigoberta Menchú Tum is a Kʼicheʼ Maya activist from the Quiché department of Guatemala who became a leading international voice for indigenous rights during and after the Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1996). Raised in a peasant family that organized against the seizure of indigenous lands, she lost several family members to state violence during the conflict and went into exile in Mexico in the early 1980s. Her testimonial memoir, published in 1983 as Me llamo Rigoberta Menchú y así me nació la conciencia (English: I, Rigoberta Menchú), brought international attention to the suffering of Guatemala's Maya population and became a landmark, if later debated, text of testimonial literature. In 1992 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work promoting social justice and ethno-cultural reconciliation, becoming the first indigenous person and youngest laureate to that date to receive the honor. She later served as a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador, founded the Rigoberta Menchú Tum Foundation, and ran for the Guatemalan presidency in 2007 and 2011.

Sources: Nobel Prize official site, "Rigoberta Menchú Tum – Facts" (nobelprize.org) · Rigoberta Menchú, as told to Elisabeth Burgos-Debray, I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala (1983 Spanish original; 1984 English translation)