Asturias, Miguel Ángel << ahs TOO ryahs, mee GEHL AHNG hehl >> (1899-1974), a Guatemalan author and diplomat, won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1967. His early work Legends of Guatemala (1930) displays a creative use of Indigenous (native) Central American traditions. His novel Mr. President (1946) condemns political dictatorship while experimenting with narrative techniques. His novel Men of Corn (1949) combines mythological narrative from Indigenous sources with social criticism. The trilogy of novels Strong Wind (1950), The Green Pope (1954), and The Eyes of the Interred (1960) focuses on unjust conditions of agricultural work in Central America.
Asturias was born on Oct. 19, 1899, in Guatemala City. He was his country’s ambassador to France from 1966 to 1970. He died on June 9, 1974.
