SOURCE: Reid, Calvin. “Nobel Winner Rejects ‘Unjust’ Allegations That She Lied.” Publishers Weekly 246, no. 10 (8 March 1999): 20–21.

In the following essay, Reid summarizes David Stoll's various allegations against Menchú and I, Rigoberta Menchú.

Speaking through an interpreter at a press conference in New York City on February 11, Rigoberta Menchú, winner of the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize, rejected charges that she lied about her background in I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala, the 1982 book that focused international attention on the country's bloody civil war. Forced to address the mounting controversy about the veracity of her account, Menchú called her 1982 book “a testimony, not a biography” and indicated that she is currently conducting research to write a genuine autobiography. She dismissed the recent allegations as “an unjust campaign to destroy my name.” Last year, Menchú published Crossing Borders a continuation of her life story after she received the Nobel Prize.

Since...