Guatemala Honors Nobel Laureate Miguel Ángel Asturias With Mayan Ceremony

OPA WIRE, Nov 14 (OPA) — The ritual at the Kaminal Juyú site brought together the writer's family and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchú Tum. The altar was adorned with white, purple, red and yellow flowers representing the four cardinal directions, alongside candles, incense and cinnamon. Menchú approached the 32-kilogram green jade urn holding Asturias' ashes, placed her hands upon it, offered a prayer and kissed the vessel.

"Today, we are here, honored by the eternal presence of Don Miguel Ángel Asturias, not only in Guatemala, but throughout the world," Menchú said during the ceremony. She urged Guatemalans to preserve the author's memory by reading his works. Ancestral knowledge guide Tat Juan José Chirizcuat led the ritual, noting it offered an opportunity to seek reconciliation regarding differing public views of the writer. The author's son, Miguel Ángel Asturias Amado, called for national unity, stating, "My father has arrived in Guatemala; may his arrival serve to unite Guatemala."

The remains of Asturias arrived in Thursday from France, where he was buried following his death in 1974. Asturias died of cancer in Madrid seven years after receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature. His pioneering work anticipated Magical Realism and helped drive the Latin American literature boom of the 1960s and 1970s. He went into exile following a 1954 coup led by Gen. Carlos Castillo Armas, who revoked his passport and citizenship after labeling him a communist. His final visit to Guatemala occurred in 1966 amid escalating conflict.

The ashes will lie in state at the National Palace of Culture through Saturday for public viewing. On Sunday, they will be permanently interred at a monument within the Miguel Ángel Asturias Cultural Center.