Men of Maize: poetry of substance

Hombres de maíz (translated as Men of Maize) is a novel by Guatemalan Nobel Prize in Literature winner Miguel Ángel Asturias (1949). Its title originates in the Popol Vuh, one of the sacred books of the Maya.

The novel deals with the conflict between two types of men: the ones who consider maize to be sacred food (the indigenous people of Guatemala); and those who view it simply as a commercial product. It exposes the devastating effects capitalism and international companies had on the lives of Guatemalan maize growers, having a profound effect on their customs, ancestral beliefs and cultural identity. The novel is generally considered to be part of the literary genre knows as Magic Realism. As such, it delves into the richness of native culture and oral tradition and touches themes such as: myths and legends, songs, native wisdom and lore, nahualism, magic and animal spirits.



"If you write novels merely to entertain - then burn them! This might be the message delivered with evangelical fervour since if you do not burn them they will anyway be erased from the memory of the people where a poet or novelist should aspire to remain. Just consider how many writers there have been who - down the ages - have written novels to entertain! And who remembers them now?" (from Nobel Lecture, 1967)

i read Miguel Ángel Asturias' masterpiece, finishing a couple of weeks ago, life being what it is i haven't had time to produce a detailed review (and the wiki oracle above is a bit sparse), I would like to flag it up. Its a highly stimulating slice of modernism, James Joyce may have gone for the Odyssey but Popol Vuh is the script here!

The other literary point is MR... published the same year as the equally wonderful and equally enjoyed recently by me Kingdom of this world by Carpentier, Men of Maize is an early example of latin american magic realism.

The Marxist and green politics theme is played with inspiration, very demanding but beautiful as a text.


The commercial growing of Maize wrecks the soil and is an act of cannabalism, the production for consumption by the Mayan indians is wreck by the invaders. The Mayan's fight back....with magic.

its a rocky ride to read, more surrealist than realist, a cartoon myth not a tight manifesto.

Incidentally it comes up as an exam question in this wild and wonderful undergraduate course 1. ‘[Maize] is the sacred sustenance of the men who were made of maize’. (Miguel Angel Asturias, Men of Maize). at Warwick University The Social History of Food in Latin America (AM205).

Asturias won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1967

here is an extract from his Nobel Lecture on the political dimension of the latin american novel:

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, it is the cry that echoes down the centuries and is pronounced in thousands of pages. A novel that is genuinely ours; determined and loyal - in its pages - to the cause of the human spirit, to the fists of our workers, to the sweat of our rural peasants, to the pain for our undernourished children; calling for the blood and the sap of our vast lands to run once more towards the seas to enrich our burgeoning new cities.

Great online biog here:

Guatemalan poet, novelist, diplomat, and winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1967. Asturias's writings combine the mysticism of the Maya with epic impulse toward social protest. His most famous novel is EL SEÑOR PRESIDENTE (1946), about life under the rule of a ruthless dictator. Asturias spent much of his life in exile because of his public opposition to dictatorial rule.