After a CIA-backed coup in 1954 overthrew Guatemala’s leftist government, many of her friends were arrested and several killed for their faith. She came to see that art was a vital point of resistance to oppression, and that analyzing literature through its political context was not only a methodological choice, but also an ethical imperative.
In her latest book, “Cruel Modernity” (2013), about the political use of brutality by Latin American authoritarian governments, she wrote that her time in Guatemala was “an experience that would leave a trace in everything I wrote.”
Jean Swindells was born on March 31, 1924 in Dukinfield, a town east of Manchester, England. Her father, William Swindells, was a baker and her mother, Ella (Newton) Swindells, was a housewife.
She and her son are survived by a sister, Pauline Swindells.
Jean studied art history at the University of Manchester, receiving a bachelor’s degree in 1944 and a master’s degree in 1946. After graduating, she received a travel grant to research art across Europe. She eventually settled in Florence, Italy, where she met a Guatemalan artist, Juan Antonio Franco. They married and moved to Guatemala City in 1953.
Mr Franco was close to the country’s left-wing president, Jacobo Árbenz, making him a target after the coup. The Francos fled to Mexico City, where she worked as a typist, teacher, and actor.
The Francos later divorced and after a short stay in Jamaica, she and her son returned to England. She began taking evening classes in Spanish-language literature, but found that almost no British academics were interested in the study of work from Latin America, as she had encountered in Guatemala.