Guatemala

"...it is just that what was happening to us was shocking. Continents submerged in the sea, races castrated as they surged to independence and the fragmentation of the New World. As the antecedants of a literature these are already tragic. And from there we have had to extract not the man of defeat, but the man of hope, that blinded creature who wanders in our songs..."

extract from the acceptance speech of Guatemalan Nobel Prize WInner for Literature, Miguel Angel Asturias, 1967.

During the second half of the 20th century, Guatemala suffered a 36-year guerrilla war. In 1996, the government signed a peace agreement formally ending the conflict, which had led to the death of more than 100,000 people and had created some one million refugees.