I, Rigoberta Menchú by Rigoberta Menchú #
I, Rigoberta Menchú, Rigoberta Menchú (audio). I checked this book out before a trip to Guatemala, but unfortunately only read/listened to it after the trip. A first-person oral recounting of events (as well as general customs of her community and things like that) in the mid-to-late seventies in Guatemala, from one of the main people involved in organizing many different Mayan populations in response to severe oppression from the government. Very interesting, and often upsetting (warning: many detailed accounts of torture and things like that), to listen to. Menchú learned Spanish—the language of the oppressors—in order to be able to tell her story; the linguistic/cultural isolation amongst Mayan communities was also a through-line int he story, and something she worked to overcome. Very much worth reading or listening to; I would recommend pairing it with a more general history of the same events, since she presupposes some details and is also just telling her story, so not everything is fully situated. Grade: A