The most recommended books about Guatemala

Who picked these books? Meet our 16 experts.

16 authors created a book list connected to Guatemala, and here are their favorite Guatemala books.
When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

What type of Guatemala book?

Loading...
Loading...

Book cover of Earth Tales from around the World

Allison Galbraith Author Of Dancing with Trees: Eco-Tales from the British Isles

From my list on environmental storytelling for folklore freaks.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a child, I spent summers looking for adders on the Common and winters walking through snowstorms pretending to be a Hobbit in Tolkien's Middle Earth. My travels and studies taught me the importance of respecting different cultures and our planet. Glasgow Libraries gave me my first storytelling work in 1992, and I have a Master's degree in Scottish Folklore. I live in Scotland, sharing stories through writing and storytelling. Having collected hundreds of traditional folktales about our ancestors' wisdom and folly, I co-authored my first book, Dancing With Trees, Eco-Tales from the British Isles, to reflect our need to understand nature's wisdom and help us live sustainably on Earth.

Allison's book list on environmental storytelling for folklore freaks

Allison Galbraith Why did Allison love this book?

A comprehensive natural world storytelling collection comprising ten chapters, organised by themes such as Earth, Fire, Water, Plants, Animals, and Stewardship.

A page of 'Lessons'  at the end of every chapter helps you explore the environmental meaning within the stories. Plus an 'Activities' section at the end of the book. The stories are from over forty countries, retold sensitively by Caduto, an ecologist and master storyteller.

Amongst my favourite stories are: Earth Words from France, about a secret language hidden in fern roots and what is lost when we become separated from nature; The First Bats from Guatemala and Mexico, a funny tale which can be adapted to any place on Earth that has bats, and The Seven Sisters an Aboriginal story which introduces the origin of the Pleiades constellation.

By Michael J. Caduto, Adelaide Murphy Tyrol (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Earth Tales from around the World as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Stories, lesson plans, and activities that explore the Earth's offerings.


Book cover of Secure the Soul: Christian Piety and Gang Prevention in Guatemala

Chad E. Seales Author Of Religion Around Bono: Evangelical Enchantment and Neoliberal Capitalism

From my list on American evangelicalism and neoliberal religion.

Why am I passionate about this?

I've always been fascinated by the ways religion reconciles contradiction. Both of my parents were public school teachers in the panhandle of Florida, and I now work at a public university in Texas, yet the culture in which I was raised, of white evangelicalism, supported economic policies of neoliberalism that defunded public life. My interest in American religion is motivated by the question of why we participate in systems that harm us. This is an economic question, but sufficient answers must address the power of religion to shape what we see as morally good and bad. These books all do that.

Chad's book list on American evangelicalism and neoliberal religion

Chad E. Seales Why did Chad love this book?

No other book better encapsulates the evangelical spirit of neoliberal policies in the details of everyday life, including what it feels like to be arrested in the United States for being part of a gang, and ending up in a call center in Central America, only to be morally shamed for not working hard enough, as your corporate employer leverages the power of religion, and the threat of danger, to keep you trapped there. 

By Kevin Lewis O'Neill,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Secure the Soul as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"I'm not perfect," Mateo confessed, "Nobody is. But I try." Secure the Soul shuttles between the life of Mateo, a born-again, ex-gang member in Guatemala and the gang prevention programs that work so hard to keep him alive. Along the way, this poignantly written ethnography uncovers the Christian underpinnings of Central American security. In the streets of Guatemala City - amid angry lynch mobs, overcrowded prisons, and paramilitary death squads - millions of dollars empower church missions, faith-based programs, and seemingly secular security projects to prevent gang violence through the practice of Christian piety. With Guatemala increasingly defined by both…


Book cover of In the Midst of Winter

Vee Kumari Author Of Dharma: A Rekha Rao Mystery

From my list on families disguised as mysteries.

Why am I passionate about this?

Being an immigrant from India, a culture that places family values above all else, I am drawn to books that explore family conflicts, secrets, and the triumph of love against all odds. When an author incorporates these themes into a mystery, the book becomes more than a simple formulaic whodunnit story that educates me about the complexities of our lives.

Vee's book list on families disguised as mysteries

Vee Kumari Why did Vee love this book?

Having loved Allende’s previous novels, this tale of history and suspense took me into the magical worlds of South American culture, to gain a better understanding of what the immigrant experience is really like for other people. Redacting from a reviewer’s comment, “this story filled with Allende's signature lyricism and ingenious plotting, teaches us what it means to respect, protect, and love.”

By Isabel Allende,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked In the Midst of Winter as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

New York Times and worldwide bestselling author Isabel Allende returns with a sweeping novel that journeys from present-day Brooklyn to Guatemala in the recent past to 1970s Chile and Brazil that offers “a timely message about immigration and the meaning of home” (People).

During the biggest Brooklyn snowstorm in living memory, Richard Bowmaster, a lonely university professor in his sixties, hits the car of Evelyn Ortega, a young undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, and what at first seems an inconvenience takes a more serious turn when Evelyn comes to his house, seeking help. At a loss, the professor asks his tenant,…


Book cover of Time Among the Maya: Travels in Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico

Ryan Murdock Author Of Vagabond Dreams: Road Wisdom from Central America

From my list on Central America.

Why am I passionate about this?

Ryan Murdock is Editor-at-Large (Europe) for Outpost, Canada’s national travel magazine, and a weekly columnist for The Shift, an independent Maltese news portal. His feature articles have taken him across a remote stretch of Canada’s Northwest Territories on foot, into the Central Sahara in search of prehistoric rock art, and around Wales with a drug squad detective hunting for the real King Arthur.

Ryan's book list on Central America

Ryan Murdock Why did Ryan love this book?

Far from being an extinct people swallowed by the jungle-like their famous temples, the Maya make up a significant percentage of the population of southern Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize, with vibrant ancient languages that are still spoken today. This beautifully written account of contemporary Maya culture will help you understand a remarkable people who explored the world through arithmetic and time.

By Ronald Wright,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Time Among the Maya as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Cut Stones and Crossroads" and "On Fiji Island" are previous books by Ronald Wright, author of this book concerned with the Maya, who in the first millennium AD, created the most intellectually and artistically advanced civilization native to the Americas. Despite a mysterious collapse in the ninth century and Spanish invasion in the 16th century, some five million people throughout Guatemala, Belize and south-eastern Mexico still speak Maya languages and preserve a Maya identity today. Ronald Wright set out to discover the roots of the Maya and the extent of their survival after centuries of invasion and a recent civil…


Book cover of Whose Heaven, Whose Earth?

Theresa Keeley Author Of Reagan's Gun-Toting Nuns: The Catholic Conflict Over Cold War Human Rights Policy in Central America

From my list on Catholics who joined revolutionary movements in Central America.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am fascinated by the relationship between people’s religious and political identities. As a kindergartner, I heard about the hunger strikers at our local Irish Center, I was taught anti-communist songs at my Catholic Ukrainian school, and I listened as my dad explained Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers as we passed by the grapes while grocery shopping. Catholicism was not something I saw as just happening inside the walls of a church. It was about how one related to the world and was part of a global community. Those early experiences inspired me to become a human rights lawyer and activist, and later, a U.S. foreign relations historian.

Theresa's book list on Catholics who joined revolutionary movements in Central America

Theresa Keeley Why did Theresa love this book?

How did a U.S. priest and nun who went to Guatemala to convert the poor to “proper” Catholicism and to fight communism join a revolutionary movement?

The married couple Thomas and Marjorie Melville explain how they shared the anti-communist views of the U.S. government and the Catholic Church but living among the poor led them to question both institutions’ roles in supporting inequality in Guatemala. At the time of the book’s publication, 1970, the two were in jail as part of the Catonsville Nine. They, along with other Catholics, broke into a Maryland draft board and poured homemade napalm on stolen files to protest U.S. imperialism, including in Vietnam, and the Catholic Church’s support for it.

Book cover of We Are Not from Here

Jennifer De Leon Author Of Borderless

From my list on Latina latine authors I wish I had read as a teen.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am convinced that my life would be better if I had read more books by Latina/Latine authors while growing up. To be able to see oneself in a story is powerful. I didn’t have that for a long time. It made me feel invisible. It made me feel like being an author was as realistic as becoming an astronaut or a performer in Cirque du Soleil. Now, as a professor of Creative Writing and author of several books (and more on the way!), I dedicated my life to writing the books I needed as a young Latina. I hope others find something meaningful in my stories, too.

Jennifer's book list on Latina latine authors I wish I had read as a teen

Jennifer De Leon Why did Jennifer love this book?

Oh my goodness—this book! I couldn’t see the pages in those final chapters because I was crying for these characters and all they went through crossing the southern border into the United States.

To this day, I still remember vivid images and moments from the novel. I won’t spoil the story for you, but here’s one: a female character wearing a baseball cap and jacket and pretending to be a male because the journey north is often much harder and riskier for women. I know I will think about this trio of characters for a long time.

By Jenny Torres Sanchez,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked We Are Not from Here as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A poignant novel of desperation, escape, and survival across the U.S.-Mexico border, inspired by current events.

A Pura Belpré 2021 Young Adult Author Honor Book!
A BookPage Best Book of 2020!
A Chicago Public Library Best of the Best of 2020!
A School Library Journal Best Book of 2020!
A New York Public Library 2020 Top 10 Best Book for Teens!

Pulga has his dreams.
Chico has his grief.
Pequeña has her pride.

And these three teens have one another. But none of them have illusions about the town they've grown up in and the dangers that surround them. Even…


Book cover of I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala

Jorge Aguilar Mora, Josefa Salmón, and Barbara C. Ewell Author Of Anthology of Spanish American Thought and Culture

From my list on seeing the world from a Latin American perspective.

Why are we passionate about this?

As professors of Latin American Studies, with more than 35 years of teaching experience on these topics, and as Latin Americanists who have lived experiences in our countries of origin, we can connect to themes of social justice as well as the wonders that indigenous cultures can offer globally in the fight against climate change as well as social and racial injustices. When we were students in the US, these texts gave us ways to reconnect to our roots; as professors, they offered us ways to connect with today’s students searching for global justice and service to others. These books help us to realize that there are other ways of looking at the world.

Jorge's book list on seeing the world from a Latin American perspective

Jorge Aguilar Mora, Josefa Salmón, and Barbara C. Ewell Why did Jorge love this book?

As a Latin American from a country of such diverse cultures as Mexico, I recommend this book by Rigoberta Menchú because it is the first 20th-century voice from an indigenous woman who has taken up arms in defense of her people. For me this connection also touches my family’s past, because I too, lost a brother to armed conflict, just like Rigoberta. A biography from an author that speaks so personally of this struggle stirs the pages in this book and makes this testimony overwhelmingly moving for any reader. But this deep connection with the reader also creates an international concern for justice. Menchú’s voice puts forward in book form a Maya tradition of community where the collective “we” is stressed in the testimony, as well as a history where experience is one, uniting the writer with the events that are being reported.  

By Rigoberta Menchú,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked I, Rigoberta Menchú as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Now a global bestseller, the remarkable life of Rigoberta Menchu, a Guatemalan peasant woman, reflects on the experiences common to many Indian communities in Latin America. Menchu suffered gross injustice and hardship in her early life: her brother, father and mother were murdered by the Guatemalan military. She learned Spanish and turned to catechistic work as an expression of political revolt as well as religious commitment. Menchu vividly conveys the traditional beliefs of her community and her personal response to feminist and socialist ideas. Above all, these pages are illuminated by the enduring courage and passionate sense of justice of…


Book cover of Rural Guatemala, 1760-1940

James Dunkerley Author Of Power in the Isthmus

From my list on Central American history and politics.

Why am I passionate about this?

My passion for Central American politics and history derived quite directly from the conflicts in the region from the late 1970s onwards. Previously I had worked in Bolivia, where I had studied as a doctoral student, and although many people still view Latin American countries as pretty homogenous, I quickly discovered that they are very far from being so. I had to unlearn quite a bit and acquire new skills, although luckily, indigenous languages are really only dominant in Guatemala. Now we can be rather less partisan although many injustices remain.

James' book list on Central American history and politics

James Dunkerley Why did James love this book?

When McCreery’s book was published the literature on the region was overwhelmingly dominated by books on politics, with the great majority written from a left-wing perspective. Even long after the fighting has ceased, many in the global North had an unnuanced vision of rural society in which oligarchic landlords exercised feudal control over an undifferentiated ‘peasantry.’ This book shows that for decades an element of that vision was borne out in everyday life, but the volume also shows on the basis of outstanding research that rural Guatemala was dynamic, riven with class competition and negotiation, far from binary in its social structure, and possessed of a rich cultural life.

By David McCreery,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Rural Guatemala, 1760-1940 as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This comprehensive study of rural development in Guatemala extends from the late colonial period through the transformation of the economy by the introduction of larger-scale coffee production.


Book cover of Bitter Fruit

June Carolyn Erlick Author Of A Gringa in Bogotá: Living Colombia's Invisible War

From my list on classics for understanding Latin America.

Why am I passionate about this?

I accidentally fell in love with Latin America, a love that has lasted my lifetime. When I was young, I lived in a Dominican neighborhood in New York, learning Spanish from my neighbors. After I graduated from Columbia Graduate School of Journalism I got a job covering the Cuban community in New Jersey because I spoke Spanish. Eventually I ended up living in Colombia and then Managua as a foreign correspondent. Now I edit a magazine at Harvard about Latin America. It's not just the news that interests me; I love the cadence of the language, the smell and taste of its varied cuisine, the warmth of the people, the culture, and, yes, soccer.

June's book list on classics for understanding Latin America

June Carolyn Erlick Why did June love this book?

This book reads like a thriller. The first time I read it, I just couldn't put it down. And every time I reread it, as history unfolds in Latin America, I see how this classic book about the U.S. overthrow of the legitimately elected government in Guatemala in 1954 is actually describing the fundamental basis of intervention in the Cold War that laid the ground for so many of the region's dictatorship.

Bitter Fruit is a brilliant piece of investigation and a story well-told.

By Stephen Schlesinger, Stephen Kinzer,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Bitter Fruit as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Bitter Fruit is a comprehensive and insightful account of the CIA operation to overthrow the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala in 1954. First published in 1982, this book has become a classic, a textbook case of the relationship between the United States and the Third World. The authors make extensive use of U.S. government documents and interviews with former CIA and other officials. It is a warning of what happens when the United States abuses its power.


Book cover of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life

Judy Juanita Author Of De Facto Feminism: Essays Straight Outta Oakland

From my list on how rebels kept up the good fight.

Why am I passionate about this?

I read bios and memoirs because I need to know what really happened. I read several bios of the same person; then piece together a sense of the truth. As a journalist, I understand that all of a person’s life won’t make it into the final story. Editors have a mission of their own; books are molded by exigent demands and social mores. That’s why The Autobiography of Malcolm X in 1965 had one view of its subject, and Manning Marable’s bio in 2011 another. I’ve read both and other accounts to formulate my own ideas about the man and his times.

Judy's book list on how rebels kept up the good fight

Judy Juanita Why did Judy love this book?

I love it as a tale of heroism, youthful idealism, success, defeat, death over and over. I first read the final chapter of this book in an excerpt after which I ordered it immediately. I had been curious about the real story behind this highly intelligent icon. Disturbing and illuminating, this book shows how driven, outright murderous in the name of revolution, Che was and how this catapulted Fidel and the Cuban revolutionaries to victory over Fulgencio Batista. I had such empathy for Che as I read through his life that I couldn’t reread the final chapter about his brutal prolonged death.

By Jon Lee Anderson,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Che Guevara as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Che Guevara's legend is unmatched in the modern world. Since his assassination in 1967 at the age of 39, the Argentine revolutionary has become an internationally famed icon, as revered as he is controversial. A Marxist ideologue, he sought to end global inequality by bringing down the American capitalist empire through armed guerrilla warfare - and has few rivals in the Cold War era as an apostle of change.

In Che: A Revolutionary Life, Jon Lee Anderson and Jose Hernandez reveal the man behind the myth, creating a complex portrait of this passionate idealist. Adapted from Anderson's masterwork, Che transports…


Book cover of Earth Tales from around the World
Book cover of Secure the Soul: Christian Piety and Gang Prevention in Guatemala
Book cover of In the Midst of Winter

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,491

readers submitted
so far, will you?