Lesson 20
Question SA-3. Here is the text reference (p. 199/4 & 5):
Miguel Angel Asturias (Guatemala, 1899-1974) was a politically committed
writer who used the rich Maya cultural heritage, with its myths and legends,
to give a magical and surrealistic touch to his novels and stories. As a
boy he had to move from Guatemala City to the countryside because of political
problems his father was having with Guatemala's military dictator of the
day. Living in a small village among the Maya, he had close contact with
them, and they shared with him their oral traditions, especially the Popol
Vuh and Chilam Balam.
After obtaining his law degree (with a thesis on the social problems
of the Indians), he lived in Paris where he studied Maya ethnography with
the best European experts. Working with them, he prepared a Spanish translation
of the Popol Vuh. He used his scientific and linguistic research to accumulate
the information on the Maya which appears in much of his later work, such
as Legends of Guatemala and Men of Corn. In this latter
work corn plays a dual role: it provides profits for the foreign exploiters
and their upper-class local collaborators in Guatemala, but corn is also
the focus of religious ceremonies and a basic source of food for the Indian
masses of the country.