SOURCE: Burgos, Elizabeth. “Testimonio and Transmission.” Latin American Perspectives 26, no. 6 (November 1999): 86–88.

In the following essay, Burgos discusses the negative repercussions that have resulted from classifying I, Rigoberta Menchú as a testimonio.

I have preferred to keep out of the controversies that have arisen as a result of the publication of David Stoll's book, but I would like to add a couple of elements that might enrich the debate and clear up misunderstandings.

My first impression was that the debate was actually more revealing about a certain cultural discomfort at the center of North American society than about Latin America, where it is customary for reality to overflow into fiction. In a continent where history and literature have always lived in symbiosis, no one expects there to be just one version of events or is surprised if lived history leads to alternative ways of describing what happened. It seemed...