Miguel Ángel Asturias – författare

A novel whose time has come: the Nobel Prize–winning author's visionary epic of ecological devastation, capitalist exploitation and indigenous wisdomDeep in the mountain forests of Guatemala, a community of Indigenous Mayans – the 'men of maize' – serves as stewards to sacred corn crops. When profiteering outsiders encroach on their territory and threaten to abuse the fertile land, they enter a bloody struggle to protect their way of life. Blurring the lines between history and mythology, Nobel Prize winner Miguel Ángel Asturias's lush, dream-like work offers a prescient warning against the loss of ancestral wisdom and the environmental destruction set in motion by colonial oppression and capitalist greed.

Though kaleidoscopic and ambitious in range and form, Weekend in Guatamala offers an exhilarating portrait of a nation and a population in turmoil. Borne in the heat and outrage that followed the 1954 overthrow of the Guatemalan government by U.S. intelligence agencies, Asturias blends many genres to capture the unfolding madness: pitch-black noir, screwball comedy, reportage and historical epic, with a master's touch.Throughout each piece the sound of planes is metonymy for the footsteps of empire, powerful as much in their distant menace as in their immanent destruction. Grand outrage is alloyed with subtle perception and mordant pastiche, and Asturias never loses sight of the people for the politics.Weekend in Guatemala is a book that defies expectation while delivering all the style and social insight that won Asturias the 1967 Novel Prize for Literature.