Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Poems of revolution by one of Latin America's most beloved poets One of Latin America's greatest poets, Roque Dalton was a revolutionary whose politics were inseparable from his art. Born in El Salvador in 1935, Dalton dedicated his life to fighting for social justice, while writing fierce, tender poems about his country and its people. In Stories and Poems of a Class Struggle, he explores oppression and resistance through the lens of five poetic personas, each with their own distinct voice. These poems show a country caught in the crosshairs of American imperialism, where the few rule the many and the many struggle to survive--and yet there is joy and even humor to be found here, as well as an abiding faith in humanity. In striking, immediate, exuberantly inventive language, Dalton captures the ethos of a people, as stirring now as when the book was first published forty years ago. "I believe the world is beautiful," he writes, "and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone."
Synopsis
"The revolutionary the dictatorship couldn't kill, the trickster poet favored by the gods."--Ben Ehrenreich, author of The Way to Spring: Life and Death in Palestine Poems of revolution by one of Latin America's most beloved poets
One of Latin America's greatest poets, Roque Dalton was a revolutionary whose politics were inseparable from his art. Born in El Salvador in 1935, Dalton dedicated his life to fighting for social justice, while writing fierce, tender poems about his country and its people. In Poemas clandestinos / Stories and Poems of a Class Struggle, he explores oppression and resistance through the lens of five poetic personas, each with their own distinct voice. These poems show a country caught in the crosshairs of American imperialism, where the few rule the many and the many struggle to survive--and yet there is joy and even humor to be found here, as well as an abiding faith in humanity. In striking, immediate, exuberantly inventive language, Dalton captures the ethos of a people, as stirring now as when the book was first published nearly forty years ago. "I believe the world is beautiful," he writes, "and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone."
Synopsis
"His prolific artistic production, cut off at the age of forty, remains a monumental artifact . . . illustrating his profound conviction that the poet can and must, in his life as well as in his work, serve as the finely-honed scalpel of change, both in word and deed." --Claribel Alegr a "The most daring and innovative Salvadoran writer and intellectual of the twentieth century." --Jaime Barba
Poems of revolution by one of Latin America's most beloved poets
Born in San Salvador in 1935, Roque Dalton dedicated his life to armed struggle while writing fierce, tender poems about his country and its people. In Historias y poemas de una lucha de clases / Stories and Poems of a Class Struggle, Dalton offers a road map for a liberated El Salvador, writing through the lens of five poetic personas, each with their own imagined history and distinct voice. This collection shows a country caught in the crosshairs of American imperialism, where the few rule the many and the many fight to survive--and yet there is love and humor and self-mockery to be found here on every page, in every verse, as well as an abiding faith in humanity. "I believe the world is beautiful," Dalton writes, "and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone."