危地马拉诗人、诺贝尔奖获得者阿斯图里亚斯传记

Miguel Ángel Asturias (1899-1974) was a Guatemalan poet, writer, diplomat, and Nobel Prize winner. He was known for his socially and politically relevant novels and as a champion of Guatemala's large indigenous population. His books were often openly critical of both Guatemalan dictatorships and American imperialism in Central America. Beyond his prolific writing, Asturias served as a diplomat for Guatemala in Europe and South America.

阿斯图里亚斯（1899-1974）是危地马拉诗人、作家、外交官和诺贝尔奖获得者。他以其与社会和政治相关的小说而闻名，是危地马拉众多土著居民的拥护者。他的书经常公开批评危地马拉的独裁统治和中美洲的美帝国主义。阿斯图里亚斯除了著述丰富，还是危地马拉驻欧洲和南美的外交官。

Fast Facts: Miguel Angel Asturias

• Full Name: Miguel Ángel Asturias Rosales

• Known For: Guatemalan poet, writer, and diplomat

• Born: October 19, 1899 in Guatemala City, Guatemala

• Parents: Ernesto Asturias, María Rosales de Asturias

• Died: June 9, 1974 in Madrid, Spain

• Education: University of San Carlos (Guatemala) and Sorbonne (Paris, France)

• Selected Works: "Legends of Guatemala," "Mr. President," "Men of Maize," "Viento Fuerte," "Weekend in Guatemala," "Mulata de tal"

• Awards and Honors: William Faulkner Foundation Latin America Award, 1962; International Lenin Peace Prize, 1966; Nobel Prize for Literature, 1967

• Spouses: Clemencia Amado (m. 1939-1947), Blanca de Mora y Araujo (m. 1950 until his death)

• Children: Rodrigo, Miguel Angel

• Famous Quote: "If planted to eat, [corn] is sacred sustenance for the man who was made of corn. If planted for business, it is hunger for the man who was made of corn." (from "Men of Maize")

Early Life

Miguel Ángel Asturias Rosales was born on October 19, 1899 in Guatemala City to a lawyer, Ernesto Asturias, and a teacher, María Rosales de Asturias. Fearing persecution by the dictatorship of Manuel Estrada Cabrera, his family moved to the small city of Salamá in 1905, where Asturias learned about Mayan culture from his mother and nanny. The family returned to the capital in 1908, where Asturias received his education. He entered university to study medicine at the University of San Carlos in 1917, but quickly changed to law, graduating in 1923. His thesis was entitled "Guatemalan Sociology: The Problem of the Indian," and won two awards, the Premio Galvez and the Chavez Prize.

阿斯图里亚斯·罗萨莱斯1899年10月19日出生在危地马拉城，他的父亲是律师埃内斯托·阿斯图里亚斯和一名教师玛里亚·罗萨莱斯·德阿斯图里亚斯。由于害怕受到曼努埃尔·埃斯特拉达·卡布雷拉独裁统治的迫害，1905年，他的家人搬到了萨拉姆，阿斯图里亚斯从母亲和保姆那里了解了玛雅文化。1908年回到阿斯图里亚斯，在那里接受教育。1917年，他进入圣卡洛斯大学学习医学，但很快改行成为法律，于1923年毕业。他的论文题目是“危地马拉社会学：印度人的问题”，并获得了两个奖项，普雷米奥·加尔维斯奖和查韦斯奖。

Early Career and Travels

• Architecture of the New Life (1928) - Lectures

• Legends of Guatemala (1930) - Collection of stories

• The President (1946)

After finishing university, Asturias helped found the Popular University of Guatemala to offer educational access to students who couldn't afford to attend the national university. His leftist activism led to a brief imprisonment under President José María Orellana, so his father sent him to London in 1923 to avoid further trouble. Asturias quickly moved on to Paris, studying anthropology and Mayan culture at the Sorbonne with Professor Georges Raynaud until 1928. Raynaud had translated a sacred Mayan text, "Popol Vuh," into French, and Asturias translated it from French into Spanish. During this time, he traveled extensively in Europe and the Middle East, and also became a correspondent for several Latin American newspapers.

Asturias returned to Guatemala briefly in 1928, but then left again for Paris, where he completed his first published work, "Leyendas de Guatemala" (Legends of Guatemala) in 1930, a recreation of indigenous folklore. The book received an award for best Spanish-American book published in France.

Asturias also wrote his novel "El Señor Presidente" (Mr. President) during his stay in Paris. Literary critic Jean Franco states, "Though based on incidents that occurred during Estrada Cabrera's dictatorship, the novel has no precise time or locale but is set in a city where every thought and every move comes under the surveillance of the man in power, an evil demiurge surrounded by a forest of listening ears, a network of telephone wires. In this state, free will is a form of treason, individualism spells death." When he returned to Guatemala in 1933, the country was being ruled by another dictator, Jorge Ubico, and Asturias could not bring the still-unpublished book with him. It would remain unpublished until 1946, well after the Ubico regime collapsed in 1944. During the period of the dictatorship, Asturias worked as a radio broadcaster and journalist.

大学毕业后，阿斯图里亚斯帮助创办了广受欢迎的危地马拉大学，为那些负担不起上国立大学的学生提供受教育的机会。他的左派激进主义导致他在总统若泽·马里亚·奥雷利亚纳（JoséMaría Orellana）的短暂监禁，因此他的父亲在1923年将他送到伦敦，以避免进一步的麻烦。阿斯图里亚斯很快搬到巴黎，在索邦大学和乔治·雷纳德教授一起学习人类学和玛雅文化，直到1928年。雷诺德把一本神圣的玛雅文字“波波尔·维”翻译成了法语，阿斯图里亚斯把它从法语翻译成西班牙语。在这段时间里，他在欧洲和中东进行了广泛的旅行，还成为了几家拉丁美洲报纸的记者。

阿斯图里亚斯于1928年短暂返回危地马拉，但随后又返回巴黎，1930年他完成了他的第一部出版作品《危地马拉传奇》（Leyendas de危地马拉）（危地马拉传说），这是一部对土著民俗的再创造。这本书获得了在法国出版的最佳西班牙裔美国人图书奖。

阿斯图里亚斯在巴黎逗留期间还写了他的小说《总统先生》。文学评论家让·佛朗哥说：“虽然小说以埃斯特拉达·卡布雷拉（Estrada Cabrera）独裁统治时期发生的事件为基础，但这部小说没有确切的时间和地点，而是以一座城市为背景，那里的每一个思想和每一个行动都受到当权者的监视，这是一个邪恶的、被倾听的耳朵包围的地方，电话线网络。在这个国家，自由意志是叛国的一种形式，个人主义意味着死亡。”1933年他回到危地马拉时，该国正由另一个独裁者豪尔赫·乌比科统治，阿斯图里亚斯无法随身携带这本尚未出版的书。直到1946年乌比科政权在1944年垮台之后，这本书才会出版。在独裁统治时期，阿斯图里亚斯是一名广播员和记者。

Asturias' Diplomatic Posts and Major Publications

• Men of Maize (1949)

• Temple of the Lark (1949) - Collection of poems

• Strong Wind (1950)

• The Green Pope (1954)

• Weekend in Guatemala (1956) - Collection of stories

• The Eyes of the Interred (1960)

• Mulata (1963)

• Mirror of Lida Sal: Tales Based on Mayan Myths and Guatemalan Legends (1967) - Collection of stories

Asturias served as a deputy in the Guatemalan National Congress in 1942, and would go on to hold a number of diplomatic posts beginning in 1945. The president who succeeded Ubico, Juan José Arévalo, appointed Asturias as the cultural attaché to the Guatemalan Embassy in Mexico, where "El Señor Presidente" was first published in 1946. In 1947, he was transferred to Buenos Aires as a cultural attaché, which two years later became a ministerial post. In 1949, Asturias published "Sien de Alondra" (Temple of the Lark), an anthology of his poems written between 1918 and 1948.

That same year, he published what is considered to be his most significant novel, "Hombres de Maiz" (Men of Maize), which drew heavily on indigenous, pre-Colombian legends. His next three novels, beginning with "Viento Fuerte" (Strong Wind), were grouped into a trilogy—known as the "Banana Trilogy"—focused on American imperialism and U.S. agricultural companies' exploitation of Guatemalan resources and labor.

In 1947, Asturias separated from his first wife, Clemencia Amado, with whom he had two sons. One of them, Rodrigo, would later become, during the Guatemalan civil war, head of the umbrella guerilla group, the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity; Rodrigo fought under a pseudonym taken from one of the characters in Asturias' "Men of Maize." In 1950, Asturias remarried, to Argentinian Blanca de Mora y Araujo.

The U.S.-backed coup that overthrew democratically elected President Jacobo Árbenzled to Asturias' exile from Guatemala in 1954. He moved back to Argentina, his wife's native country, where he published a collection of short stories about the coup, titled "Weekend in Guatemala" (1956). His novel "Mulata de tal" (Mulata) was published the following year. "A surrealistic blend of Indian legends, [it] tells of a peasant whose greed and lust consign him to a dark belief in material power from which, Asturias warns us, there is only one hope for salvation: universal love," according to NobelPrize.org.

Asturias served in a number of diplomatic roles again in the early 1960s in Europe, spending his final years in Madrid. In 1966, Asturias was awarded the International Lenin Peace Prize, a prominent Soviet award previously won by Pablo Picasso, Fidel Castro, Pablo Neruda, and Bertolt Brecht. He was also named the Guatemalan ambassador to France.

阿斯图里亚斯在1942年担任危地马拉国民议会代表，并将从1945年开始担任一些外交职务。接替Ubico的总统胡安·何塞·阿雷瓦洛任命阿斯图里亚斯为危地马拉驻墨西哥大使馆的文化专员，《厄尔塞诺总统》于1946年首次出版。1947年，他被调到布宜诺斯艾利斯担任文化专员，两年后成为部长级职位。1949年，阿斯图里亚斯出版了《仙人掌》（Sien de Alondra）（云雀庙），这是他创作于1918年至1948年间的诗集。

同年，他出版了被认为是他最重要的小说《玉米人》（Hombres de Maiz）（玉米人），该书大量借鉴了哥伦比亚以前的土著传说。他接下来的三部小说，从《万岁》（Viento Fuerte）开始，被归为“香蕉三部曲”三部曲，主要讲述美帝国主义和美国农业公司对危地马拉资源和劳动力的开采。

1947年，阿斯图里亚斯与他的第一任妻子克莱门西娅·阿马多（Clemencia Amado）分居，两人育有两个儿子。其中一个名叫罗德里戈，后来在危地马拉内战期间成为了危地马拉国民革命联合会伞式游击队的头目；罗德里戈是用阿斯图里亚斯的《玉米人》中的一个人物的笔名作战的。1950年，阿斯图里亚斯再婚，嫁给了阿根廷的布兰卡·德莫拉·阿劳霍。

1954年，美国支持的推翻民选总统雅各布·阿尔本斯的政变导致阿斯图里亚斯从危地马拉流亡。他回到了妻子的祖国阿根廷，在那里他出版了一本关于政变的短篇小说集，题为“危地马拉周末”（1956年）。他的小说《穆拉塔·德·塔尔》（Mulata de tal）于次年出版一个印度传说的超现实主义混合，[它]讲述了一个农民，他的贪婪和欲望将他置于对物质力量的黑暗信仰中，阿斯图里亚斯警告我们，拯救只有一个希望：普世之爱NobelPrize.org网站.

阿斯图里亚斯在20世纪60年代初再次在欧洲担任了许多外交职务，在马德里度过了他的最后几年。1966年，阿斯图里亚斯被授予国际列宁和平奖，这是一个著名的苏联奖项，此前由毕加索、菲德尔·卡斯特罗、巴勃罗·聂鲁达和贝托尔特·布莱希特获得。他还被任命为危地马拉驻法国大使。

Literary Style and Themes

Asturias was considered to be an important exponent of the famed Latin American literary style magical realism. For example, "Legends of Guatemala" draws on indigenous spirituality and supernatural/mythical elements and characters, common features of magical realism. Although he did not speak an indigenous language, he used Mayan vocabulary often in his works. Jean Franco interprets Asturias's use of an experimental writing style in "Men of Maize" as offering a more authentic method for representing indigenous thought than traditional Spanish-language prose could offer. Asturias's style was also greatly influenced by Surrealism, and he was even involved in this artistic movement while in Paris in the 1920s: "El Señor Presidente" demonstrates this influence.

As should be evident, the themes Asturias tackled in his work were very much influenced by his national identity: he drew on Mayan culture in many of his works, and used his country's political situation as fodder for his novels. Guatemalan identity and politics were major features of his work.

阿斯图里亚斯被认为是著名的拉美文学风格魔幻现实主义的重要代表人物。例如，《危地马拉传奇》利用了当地的灵性和超自然/神话元素和人物，这些都是魔幻现实主义的共同特点。虽然他不会说土著语言，但他在作品中经常使用玛雅语词汇。让-佛朗哥将阿斯图里亚斯在《玉米人》中使用的实验性写作风格解释为提供了一种比传统西班牙语散文更真实的表达本土思想的方法。阿斯图里亚斯的风格也深受超现实主义的影响，20世纪20年代在巴黎时，他甚至参与了这一艺术运动：“厄尔塞涅尔总统”体现了这种影响。

显而易见的是，阿斯图里亚斯在作品中所涉及的主题很大程度上受到了他的民族身份的影响：他在许多作品中借鉴了玛雅文化，并将本国的政治形势作为小说的素材。危地马拉的身份和政治是他的作品的主要特点。

The Nobel Prize

In 1967, Asturias was was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. In his Nobel lecture, he stated, "We, the Latin American novelists of today, working within the tradition of engagement with our peoples which has enabled our great literature to develop—our poetry of substance—also have to reclaim lands for our dispossessed, mines for our exploited workers, to raise demands in favour of the masses who perish in the plantations, who are scorched by the sun in the banana fields, who turn into human bagasse in the sugar refineries. It is for this reason that—for me—the authentic Latin American novel is the call for all these things."

Asturias died in Madrid on June 9, 1974.

1967年，阿斯图里亚斯被授予诺贝尔文学奖。在他的诺贝尔演讲中，他说：“我们，今天的拉丁美洲小说家，在与我们的人民接触的传统中工作，这使我们伟大的文学得以发展我们的物质诗歌，也必须为我们被剥夺的人开垦土地，为我们受剥削的工人开垦地雷，提出有利于死亡群众的要求在种植园里，他们在香蕉地里被太阳晒焦，在糖厂里变成人的蔗渣。所有这些东西都是因为拉丁美洲的东西才叫我的。”

阿斯图里亚斯于1974年6月9日在马德里去世。

Legacy

In 1988, the Guatemalan government established an award in his honor, the Miguel Ángel Asturias Prize in Literature. The national theater in Guatemala City is also named after him. Asturias is particularly remembered as a champion of the indigenous people and culture of Guatemala. Beyond the ways indigenous culture and beliefs were reflected in his literary work, he was an outspoken advocate for a more equal distribution of wealth in order to combat the marginalization and poverty faced by Mayans, and spoke out against U.S. economic imperialism that exploited Guatemala's natural resources.

1988年，危地马拉政府设立了一个奖项，米格尔·安格尔·阿斯图里亚斯文学奖。危地马拉城的国家剧院也是以他的名字命名的。阿斯图里亚斯是危地马拉土著人民和文化的捍卫者。除了在他的文学作品中反映土著文化和信仰的方式外，他还直言不讳地主张更平等地分配财富，以消除玛雅人面临的边缘化和贫困，并直言不讳地反对剥削危地马拉自然资源的美国经济帝国主义。

Sources

• Franco, Jean. An Introduction to Spanish-American Literature, 3rd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

• "Miguel Angel Asturias – Facts." NobelPrize.org. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1967/asturias/facts/, accessed 3 November 2019.

• Smith, Verity, editor. Encyclopedia of Latin American Literature. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997.

推荐阅读：

执德不弘 信道不笃 焉能为有 焉能为亡