Humberto Ak'ab'al also Ak'abal or Akabal (born 1952 Momostenango

Momostenango

Momostenango is a municipality in the Totonicapán department of Guatemala. The municipality is situated in the North-West of Totonicapán, in the Western highlands of Guatemala.-Population:Momostenango's population is predominantly of Maya K'iche' descent...

, Totonicapán department

Departments of Guatemala

||Guatemala is divided into 22 departments :#Alta Verapaz#Baja Verapaz#Chimaltenango#Chiquimula#Petén#El Progreso#El Quiché#Escuintla#Guatemala#Huehuetenango#Izabal#Jalapa#Jutiapa#Quetzaltenango#Retalhuleu#Sacatepéquez...

) is a K'iche' Maya poet from Guatemala

Guatemala

Guatemala is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast...

. His poetry has been published in French, English, Scots

Scots language

Scots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...

, German, and Italian translations, as well as in the original K'iche'

K'iche' language

The K’iche’ language is a part of the Mayan language family. It is spoken by many K'iche' people in the central highlands of Guatemala. With close to a million speakers , it is the second-most widely spoken language in the country after Spanish...

 and Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

. His book Guardián de la caída de agua (or "Guardian of the Waterfall" in English) was named book of the year by Association of Guatemalan Journalists and received their Golden Quetzal award in 1993. In 1995 he received an honorary degree from the Department of Humanities of the Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala

Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala

The Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala It is the biggest and oldest university of Guatemala, also it is the fourth founded in the Americas....

. In 2004 he declined to receive the Guatemala National Prize in Literature

Guatemala National Prize in Literature

The Miguel Ángel Asturias National Prize in Literature is the most important literary award in Guatemala...

 because it is named for Miguel Ángel Asturias

Miguel Ángel Asturias

Miguel Ángel Asturias Rosales was a Nobel Prize–winning Guatemalan poet, novelist, playwright, journalist and diplomat...

, whom Ak'ab'al accused of encouraging racism. He said Asturias' 1923 essay The Social Problem of the Indian, "Offends the indigenous peoples of Guatemala, of which I am part."

He was the recipient of a 2006 Guggenheim fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...

.

External links

• Humberto Ak'abal official site
• Humberto Ak'abal at Poetry International Web
• Drum of Stone 'Drum of Stone' is a collection of Humberto Ak'abal's poetry with translations into English and Scots, published May 2010