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Gripping, albeit with an American lens. A man showed up on Forche‘s doorstep one day and urged her to accompany him to El Salvador, where as a white American poet she could witness to the world what was happening in the building civil war, with US power behind the brutal regime. She describes the horror happening and the courage of the people there: Monsignor Romero being the most prominent one among others. #ReadingTheAmericas2023 #ElSalvador

The homily was broadcast to thousands of radios throughout the country…when it came to an end, Oscar Romero walked towards the coffins sprinkling holy water on the dead. And then he walked through the congregation, and we parted to make a path for him, the water sprinkling down on our bowed heads. Later I would understand that here the dead and the living were together, and those he saw alive before him he was blessing in advance.

For Forché, the American and the Salvadoran and the fate of both their countries have become one. “If a thing exists in one place, it will exist everywhere,” she writes, quoting the Polish poet and Nobel laureate Czesław Miłosz. That statement is one reason her book about El Salvador could come out in 2019 and still be as relevant as it would have been 35 years ago.

They set the head on the neck, where it once had been. Then the three men take off their straw hats and stand in a circle in a circle around the man they have reassembled. They stand, and one crosses himself lightly. The parts are not quite touching, there is soul between them, especially between the head and the rest… “Why doesn‘t anyone do something?” I think I asked. On this day I will learn that the human head weighs about 2.5 kilograms.

When the poet Carolyn Forché was 27 years old, a man she‘d never met knocked on her door and asked her to come to his country, El Salvador, and witness “another Vietnam from the beginning.” She did. This memoir of that harrowing and eye-opening and worldview-altering experience is an incredible and vital read.

El Salvador, pre-war. It is hard even now, living where I do, to imagine the privation. Bless her for writing it.

I was excited to have the opportunity to talk books with Jenny from the Reading Envy podcast - you can check out the episode here:
http://readingenvy.blogspot.com/2021/01/reading-envy-212-subtly-fascinating.html...
If you're new to ReadingEnvy, it's fantastic: Jenny and her guests trade off in discussing recent reads - a perfect podcast for readers basically. There's also readalongs and other themed activities and challenges to try.
@ReadingEnvy

#top6reads
Thanks for the tag @vivastory
For a lover of fiction, it's a strange first half to a year where half of my top reads are memoirs, but these three were that good and among the best memoirs I've ever read.
(The top two pictured are My Name Is Red and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit)
Feel like sharing yours @Cathythoughts @erzascarletbookgasm ?

I like this book very very much.
Although I was confused in the beginning because who would accept an invitation from a man she barely knew to a country facing a war, the more I read the more I like it.
I think it is her writing style bringing me into this book and keeping reading. I can feel the violence and terrifying situations without reading violent languages and wordings. It is no doubt a worth reading book!!

Wow. Listened to this on Libby. A poet in El Salvador before and after the second civil war. Graceful writing. Highly recommend.

@Suet624 I cannot thank you enough for recommending this memoir: I've never read a better one or a story that feels more urgent.
It's non-fiction, but better to go in knowing less- I'll describe the beginning: Carolyn Forché was 27 in 1977, a poet living in San Diego. A stranger arrives at her door with his 2 daughters after driving for 3 days from El Salvador: Leonel Gómez Vides, a relative of her friend. He tells her 'we have work to do.' 👇

#weeklyforecast I will finish The Dutch House and maybe Riot Baby today. I have just started the tagged book. I am listening to The Girl in the Tower and should be able to get back to The Missing of Clairdelune later this week! If only I could read instead of work!!

One of the most in depth and fascinating and well written (true) stories I‘ve read in a long time.

This was intense. Forche‘s memoir of San Salvador & what made her a political poet.

This was a quote from a year or two before the civil war in El Salvador. The statement has echoed throughout my days since reading it. There is always a breaking point. Always.

I‘m having trouble returning this book to the library. I‘ve had a visceral reaction to it - I want to hold and protect it. I want to hold those who lived through those times and protect them. And I want to sit beside those who read it and talk with them about it.

This memoir is dedicated to Leonel Gomez Vides, as it should be. Leonel teaches the author about the history, impending war, and the role of the US in the slaughter of citizens in El Salvador while keeping her out of harm‘s way during her time there. His work in brokering peace, after the brutal deaths of 100,000 citizens, is astonishing. This is an extremely difficult book to read. The brutality of men & the role of the US in it all is 😭🤬🤯.

A quote that NPR highlights from the book. While this quote is about the state of a nation, with gun deaths constantly on the rise, the oppression of guns, the NRA, the politicians who kowtow to the gun lobby and the angry white man came to mind this morning. Something better is definitely possible.

Sounds like a fascinating memoir.