Miguel Angel Asturias
Asturias, Miguel Angel
Born Oct. 19, 1899, in Guatemala. Guatemalan writer.
Asturias graduated from a university in 1923 and lived as an émigré in Europe between 1925 and 1933. In Paris he drew on folklore themes to create the book Legends of Guatemala (1930). By 1933 he completed the novel Mister President (published 1946; Russian translation, 1959), which exposed the tyrannical regime. In 1949 he published the novel Men of Corn. His trilogy about the fate of the Guatemalan people in the 20th century—the novels Strong Wind (1950), The Green Pope (1954; Russian translation, 1960), and Eyes of the Buried (1960; Russian translation, 1968)—won world renown; it is imbued with ideas of liberation. Asturias also wrote the novel The Mulattress (1964) and the book of legends The Mirror of Lida Sal (1967). The writer’s ties to the native population of Guatemala—the Mayan Indians—and their folklore are perceptible in his work. He was awarded the International Lenin Prize for Strengthening Peace Between Nations in 1966 and the Nobel Prize in 1967.
WORKS
Obras escogidas, vols. 1–3. Madrid, 1961–66.Teatro. Buenos Aires, [1964].
In Russian translation:
Uik-end v Gvatemale. Moscow, 1958.
REFERENCES
Ospovat, L. “Golos nepokorennoi Gvatemaly (Romany Migelia Ankhelia Asturiasa).” Inostrannaia literatura, 1958, no. 6.Dashkevich, Iu. “M. A. Asturias.” Ibid., 1962, no. 12.
Kuteishchikova, V. “Glazami indeitsev Gvatemaly.” Voprosy literatury, 1963, no. 9.
Migel’ Ankhel’ Asturias: Biobibliografich, ukazatel’. Moscow, 1960. [Compiler and author of introductory article, Iu. A. Pevtsov.]
Bellini, G. La narrativa di M. A. Asturias. Milan-Varese, [1966].
L. S. OSPOVAT