This is an amazing and embarrassing discussion. Is it a paroxysm of white liberal guilt that is causing so many presumably intelligent people to tie themselves up in such knots? If Menchú lied, she lied. If she intended her book to be taken as factual truth, it was a lie (apparently); if she was telling a story, as story-tellers have for millennia, and the tale was mistaken for factual truth, then lots of people ought to feel silly. This is a simple issue. There's no need to obscure it with blather about "telling her truth". Regardless, as several have pointed out, the horrors of what has gone in Central America need addressing, and if her book helps do that, more power to it. But present it as what it is: A work intended to stir people to action, not a factual account.
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