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Her prize is based in part on her 1987 autobiography I, Rigoberta Menchú. Detractors claim that the book contains many fabrications (see Journalism fraud for details of these allegations). Her defenders claim that any dishonesties are offset by the overarching importance of her tale of U.S-funded Guatemalan suppression of the Indian people.
Menchu began migrant farm work at age 8 under conditions that killed siblings and friends. As an adult, she joined family members in action against military for its human rights abuses. Violence forced her excile in 1981.
In 1991 she participated in the ongoing preparation by the United Nations of a declaration of the rights of indigenous people. She is a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. She returned to Guatemala to work for change.
She has been seeking to have Guatemala's ex-military dictator and current presidential candidate Efraín Ríos Montt tried in Spanish courts in 1999 for crimes committed against Spanish citizens. But these attempts have faltered. In addition to the deaths of Spanish citizens, the most serious charges include genocide against Guatemalan Maya people.