SOURCE: Wilson, Robin. “A Challenge to the Veracity of a Multicultural Icon.” Chronicle of Higher Education 45, no. 19 (15 January 1999): A14–A16.

In the following essay, Wilson explores the controversy surrounding the alleged fabrications in I, Rigoberta Menchú.

The autobiography of a poor Guatemalan woman whose family was oppressed by light-skinned landowners and brutalized by right-wing soldiers has become a cornerstone of the multicultural canon over the last 15 years. So far-reaching is its popularity—it is read in courses ranging from history to literature to anthropology—that its author, Rigoberta Menchú, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992, has become a virtual icon on American campuses.

But in the last month, new research has emerged suggesting that major portions of the book, I, Rigoberta Menchú (Verso, 1983), are untrue. A Middlebury College anthropology professor's new book, based on more than 120 interviews in Ms. Menchú's hometown, reports that key events detailed...