In the Courtyard of the Moon

HUMBERTO AK'ABAL (1952-2019) was born in the village of Momostenango, Totonicapán, Guatemala. His second book, Guardián de la caída de agua, was nominated as Book of the Year and awarded with the Quetzal de Oro in 1993 by the Guatemalan Association of Journalists. He also received the Blaise Cendrars International Poetry Award in 1997 given by the Cultural Department of the City of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, and in 1998 the Canto de América Prize in Indigenous Literatures given by the Association of Writers in Indigenous Languages in Mexico City. In 2004 Ak'abal received the Pier Paolo Pasolini International Poetry Award and in 2005 a Chevalier d'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. In 2006, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.