Miguel Ángel Asturias
Guatemalan writer and diplomat (1899–1974)
Miguel Ángel Asturias: literature, myth and political power
Guatemala and Paris
Asturias studied law in Guatemala and helped establish the Popular University, which offered teaching beyond the national university. He left for Europe in 1923 and spent a decade in Paris, where lectures on Maya religions informed his literary interests.
Books under dictatorship
Leyendas de Guatemala appeared in 1930. Asturias wrote El Señor Presidente in Paris, but its portrayal of dictatorship delayed publication until 1946. His later novel Viento fuerte, published in 1950, addressed the economic power of a foreign fruit company in Guatemala.
Exile and recognition
After the Guatemalan government fell in 1954, Asturias lived in exile in Argentina. He returned to diplomatic service as ambassador to France in 1966. The following year he received the Nobel Prize in Literature, recognition of a body of writing that connected political conflict with indigenous traditions.
Data and sources
Nobel Prize — Miguel Angel Asturias, biographical ↗