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Carolyn Forché is 27 when the mysterious stranger appears on her doorstep. The relative of a friend, he is a charming polymath with a mind as seemingly disordered as it is brilliant. She's heard rumors from her friend about who he might be: a lone wolf, a communist, a CIA operative, a sharpshooter, a revolutionary, a small coffee farmer, but according to her, no one seemed to know for certain. He has driven from El Salvador to invite Forché to visit and learn about his country. Captivated for reasons she doesn't fully understand, she accepts and becomes enmeshed in something beyond her comprehension. Together, they meet with high-ranking military officers, impoverished farm workers, and clergy desperately trying to assist the poor and keep the peace. These encounters are a part of his plan to educate her, but also to learn for himself just how close the country is to war. As priests and farm-workers are murdered and protest marches attacked, he is determined to save his country, and Forché is swept up in his work and in the lives of his friends. Pursued by death squads and sheltering in safe houses, the two forge a rich friendship, as she attempts to make sense of what she's experiencing and establish a moral foothold amidst profound suffering. This is the powerful story of a poet's experience in a country on the verge of war, and a journey toward social conscience in a perilous time

'The impulse to write a political poem is a gut reaction of rage, frustration, impotence and sorrow' Claribel Alegría, one of Central America's best-known poets, was born in Estelí, Nicaragua in 1924, but she considers herself Salvadorean because she went to live in El Salvador when she was a year old. She went to the United States in 1943 and earned her BA from George Washington University. While not originally a political exile from El Salvador, her opposition to successive regimes there has meant she cannot safely return. She now lives in Deya, Mallorca with her North American husband, Darwin J. Flakoll. Her books of poetry include Anillo de Silencio, Suite, Vigilias, Acuario, Huesped de mi Tiempo, Vía Unica, Aprendizaje, Pagaré a cobrar y ótros poemas, Raíces, and Sobrevivo. A selected poems, Suma y sigue (antología), appeared from Visor Madrid in 1981, and her translations of North American poets, Nuevas voces de Norte-america, appeared from Plaza & Janes, S.A., the same year. In 1978, Claribel Alegría was awarded the Casa de las Americas Prize in Havana, Cuba. This interview was conducted in Mallorca by the young North American poet Carolyn Forché, author of several collections of verse including The Country Between Us and translator of a collection of Claribel Alegría's poems in English, Flowers from the Volcano (University of Pittsburgh). It first appeared in Poetry East. Two of the accompanying poems are translated by Carolyn Forché. The rest have been published by the El Salvador Solidarity Campaign (London), in a small collection of Claribel Alegría's poems, Poesía Viva.

This inspired collection offers a new paradigm for moving the world beyond violence as the first, and often only, response to violence. Through essays and poetry, prayers and meditations, Transforming Terror powerfully demonstrates that terrorist violence—defined here as any attack on unarmed civilians—can never be stopped by a return to the thinking that created it. A diverse array of contributors—writers, healers, spiritual and political leaders, scientists, and activists, including Desmond Tutu, Huston Smith, Riane Eisler, Daniel Ellsberg, Amos Oz, Fatema Mernissi, Fritjof Capra, George Lakoff, Mahmoud Darwish, Terry Tempest Williams, and Jack Kornfield—considers how we might transform the conditions that produce terrorist acts and bring true healing to the victims of these acts. Broadly encompassing both the Islamic and Western worlds, the book explores the nature of consciousness and offers a blueprint for change that makes peace possible. From unforgettable firsthand accounts of terrorism, the book draws us into awareness of our ecological and economic interdependence, the need for connectedness, and the innate human capacity for compassion