Poems of revolution by one of Latin America’s most beloved poets
“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
Translated by Jack Hirschman and Barbara Paschke
Foreword by Christopher Soto and Tatiana Marroquín
Introductions by Jaime Barba and Margaret Randall
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.”