How Rigoberta Became Rigoberta
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the controversy surrounding Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchú constituted one of the most interesting—and acrimonious—academic debates to take place in recent decades. It may seem that not much new can be said about it now, for most every single person weighing in on the subject has already spoken, and that includes Rigoberta Menchú herself, Elisabeth Burgos, David Stoll, and the many writers and scholars (I among them) who participated in the debate years ago.1 But this is a story that keeps coming back, and hence it is worth reviewing.
Born in 1959 in the rural village of Chimel in the western highlands of Guatemala, Rigoberta Menchú Tum is a Ki’che’ (Quiché) Maya woman and human rights activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992. The year
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