SOURCE: Grandin, Greg, and Francisco Goldman. Review of I, Rigoberta Menchú, by Rigoberta Menchú. Nation 268, no. 5 (8 February 1999): 25–27.

In the following review, Grandin faults David Stoll's criticisms of Menchú and her autobiography I, Rigoberta Menchú.

In the early eighties, I, Rigoberta Menchú became an international bestseller. A moving account of gruesome repression, gut-wrenching poverty and vicious racism, the book made Menchú a human rights celebrity, eventually winning her a Nobel Peace Prize and focusing worldwide attention on the plight of Guatemalan Indians. Menchú was unsparing in her criticism of the Guatemalan Army, charging it with the wholesale slaughter of thousands of Indians, including members of her own family.

As the New York Times recently reported, however, David Stoll, a professor of anthropology at Middlebury College, has called Menchú's story into question. In Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans Stoll alleges that Menchú exaggerated and otherwise...