Indigenous Guatemalans say goodbye to Nobel writer who defended them

Indigenous Guatemalans gathered at an ancient site on Saturday to bid farewell to Nobel Prize winner Miguel Angel Asturias, whose remains had been returned to Guatemala after half a century. Asturias, a lawyer, writer, and diplomat, was known for his outspoken criticism of dictators and his defense of Indigenous rights. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1967.

Asturias passed away in Spain in 1974 at the age of 74, while the Franco dictatorship was still in power. His ashes, shaped like a corn kernel, arrived in the country on Thursday, carried by his son, Miguel Angel Asturias Amado. The 1992 Nobel peace laureate Rigoberta Menchu, speaking at the ceremony, praised Asturias as a universal figure whose legacy transcended Guatemala.

Asturias Amado, 85, expressed his emotional response to the reunion of his father's remains with his homeland. The ashes will be interred on Sunday in a cultural center named after Asturias. The family's decision to bring Asturias home was influenced by the election of Bernardo Arevalo as Guatemala's president in 2024. Asturias fled to France in 1954 following a U.S.-backed coup that ended a decade of democratic reforms in Guatemala.

He never returned to his home country until his death in 1974. Asturias' most famous works include the 1946 novel "The President" and the 1930 book "Legends of Guatemala," which drew inspiration from Indigenous mythology. Historian Artemis Torres highlighted Asturias' role in denouncing political oppression through his literature, particularly his critiques of coffee-plantation and oligarchic dictatorships.

The Asturias family chose not to bury him in his native Spain due to the Franco dictatorship and avoided Guatemala's turbulent political climate at the time. Asturias Amado emphasized that his father was a staunch opponent of dictatorships.