Miguel Ángel Asturias (1899-1974) was one of the major shapers of the modernist Latin American novel, especially its development into an anti-imperialist and anti-racist genre. The progenitor of what became famous as 'magical realism', he was also a poet, dramatist, ethnologist, journalist and political commentator in his native Guatemala and is translated and read across the world. In 1967 Asturias won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Sonya Surabhi Gupta is former Professor of Latin American studies in the Department of Foreign Languages, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.

Shad Naved is Assistant Professor of comparative literature and translation studies at Dr B.R. Ambedkar University Delhi.