SOURCE: Constable, Pamela. “Memories of the Struggle.” Washington Post Book World (26 July 1998): 9.

In the following positive review, Constable compliments Menchú's critiques of international politics in Crossing Borders.

“I am like a drop of water on a rock. After drip, drip, dripping in the same place, I begin to leave a mark, and I leave my mark in many people's hearts.” This is how Rigoberta Menchú, the Mayan activist from Guatemala who won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1992, describes herself in her new book, Crossing Borders. Reading it, one appreciates the enormous patience that is required to prick the world's conscience about human rights—and that is also a principal virtue of the indigenous people Menchú represents.

For nearly 20 years, this small woman has waged an implacable protest campaign against repressive, racist practices in the Guatemalan highlands—practices that led to a vicious guerrilla war, the decimation...