A Mayan ceremony held Saturday at the Kaminal Juyú archaeological site in Guatemala's capital paid tribute to Nobel Prize-winning author Miguel Ángel Asturias, whose ashes returned to his Central American country this week after decades abroad. The ritual brought together the writer's family and special guests, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchú Tum.

The altar was adorned with white, purple, red and yellow flowers representing the four cardinal directions, alongside candles, incense and cinnamon. Before the ritual, Menchú approached the 32-kilogram (70-pound) green jade urn holding Asturias' ashes, placed her hands upon it, offered a prayer, spoke to the urn and kissed it. "Today, we are here, honored by the eternal presence of Don Miguel Ángel Asturias, not only in Guatemala, but throughout the world," she said, later encouraging Guatemalans to keep his memory alive by reading his works.S1S2

The remains arrived in Guatemala on Thursday from France, where Asturias had been buried after his death in exile in 1974. He died of cancer in Madrid seven years after receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature. His work is considered a precursor to Magical Realism and a key factor in the boom of Latin American literature during the 1960s and 1970s. He went into exile after a 1954 coup led by Gen. Carlos Castillo Armas, who revoked his passport and stripped him of his Guatemalan citizenship, labeling him a communist.S1S2

Asturias' final visit to Guatemala took place in 1966, when the country was already gripped by violence and repression fueled by a war between the army and guerrilla forces. He took part in social protests and supported the recognition of the rights of Indigenous peoples, but he also faced accusations of racism over the contents of his college thesis.S1S2

On Saturday, ancestral knowledge guide Tat Juan José Chirizcuat, who led the ritual, said the ceremony offered an opportunity to seek forgiveness and foster reconciliation in light of the different views people hold of the author. The author's son, Miguel Ángel Asturias Amado, called for unity: "My father has arrived in Guatemala; may his arrival serve to unite Guatemala." The ashes will lie in state at the National Palace of Culture through Saturday, and on Sunday they will be interred at a monument within the Miguel Ángel Asturias Cultural Center.S1S2