About Humberto Ak'abal Books
Humberto Ak'abal (1952-2019) was a K'iche' Maya poet from Guatemala. His book Guardián de la caída de agua (Guardian of the Waterfall) was named book of the year by Association of Guatemalan Journalists and received their Golden Quetzal award in 1993. In 2004, he declined to receive the Guatemala National Prize in Literature because it is named for Miguel Ángel Asturias, whom Ak'abal accused of encouraging racism. Ak'abal, a recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, passed away on January 28, 2019.Michael Bazzett is the author of The Echo Chamber, as well as five other collections of poems, including The Interrogation and You Must Remember This, winner of the Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry. He is also the translator of The Popol Vuh, which was long-listed for the National Translation Award and named one of the best books of poetry in 2018 by the New York Times. Bazzett is a poet, teacher, and 2017 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow. His work has appeared in Ploughshares, Massachusetts Review, Pleiades, Guernica, Virginia Quarterly Review, Copper Nickel, The Rumpus, and Best New Poets. He lives in Minneapolis.
