A very well written, and somewhat strange story of Forche's time in El Salvador from the late 1970s. I recommend it highly. ( )

“Over the years, I have been asked why, as a twenty-seven-year-old American poet who spoke Spanish brokenly and knew nothing about the isthmus of the Americas, I would accept the invitation of a man I barely knew to spend time in a country on the verge of war. And why would this stranger…take any interest in a naïve North American poet?”

Poet Carolyn Forche’s memoir about her experiences in El Salvador. In 1977, Leonel, a Salvadoran activist and relatively unknown “friend of a friend,” shows up without warning at Carolyn’s home in California, gives her a crash course in Salvadoran history, and convinces her to travel to El Salvador to witness the beginning of the Salvadoran Civil War (1979-1992). He insists that poets are the best witnesses and asks her to write about what she sees.

Leonel knew that a civil war was imminent. He and Carolyn traveled the country. Many times, he left her to her own devices. She saw first-hand how the people lived and the human rights abuses that were being committed. This is one person’s journey on the road to understanding the interrelatedness among people of the world. It is her attempt to open the eyes of others the same way hers were opened by Leonel. I found it powerful and memorable. ( )

I listened to this book based on a guest's recommendation on the Reading Envy podcast.

I did not love this book (I listened to the audio, as recommended; I listened on Hoopla). Honestly I only finished because it was an NBA longlisted book. I did not like the narration and listened at 1.25x to make it go faster. The author also narrated and she has a peculiar accent that I cannot place. Would I have liked it more if I read a paper copy? Perhaps. But I still do not understand why Forché went to a country on the verge of war with a man she did not know (even if she knew people who knew him). She tried to explain, but IMO she failed.
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After visiting a friend's family in Spain, Forché was back home in SD when a strange man her Spanish friends knew showed up at her door with his young daughters. He invited himself in and proceeded to teach her about the situation in El Salvador, and then invited her to come observe. And she went. For months she traveled with this man, met important people in the govt and in the guerilla movement. People she had met were killed, and she certainly felt like she had some close calls herself. She left before the war officially began and did not go back for over 10 years. And honestly I just don't get it--why she went, why she was chosen. "Being a poet" is not an explanation, ( )

The good news? Dare I say excellent news? I don't recall any time in many decades where the writing in a book came to draw me in so compulsively and all but demanded I keep reading it. Perhaps, back as a kid when I zoomed through a Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew mystery. The less than good news? What she writes, when she writes, how this book is marketed, and a few other issues are not what they claim to be. I'll mention just a handful of matters that put me off. First, how she starts the book, describing her first meeting with the main character -- no, it's not really her -- that meeting transpires and then results in future actions by the author that barely reach credulity. Her naïveté paired with her scepticism at that point in time makes it all the more incredulous. Even toward the end of the book, the author brings up the fact that she is often asked how she came about doing what she did from that meeting -- and then fails yet again to explain it, as if the end result explains it all. Second, the title mentions a memoir of "witness and resistence." The author clearly witnessed (that's the compelling reading), but there's no "resistence" on her part. In fact, the whole purpose of her being where she goes is to just witness. It would be more accurate to say it was a reporting of her witnessing other persons' resistance. I would even go so far as to say it is more a biography of others' resistance, albeit in a first-person, as it was happening, style. Next, why does she take so long to act on what she witnessed? Supposedly, she did publish poetry that reflected her witnessing, but she doesn't mention it in the book. Oh, and why we're at it, what's the thing about poetry and poets. All quotes are from poets. She is recruited for her witnessing assignment because of her poetry connection. If only poets and poetry can make sense of what happens and appropriately convey it to others, why the hell is this a prose book. Is she supposedly stooping down to let the less elite of us a chance to be informed? Thanks, but I was already well informed about the types of things on which she reported and I didn't learn it in poetry. Also, why does she never mention which U.S. administration is doing what at any given time in her time line. I know enough about the different presidencies during this time and what was happening in the country she visited that I could figure out which president left and which president came in and when, to explain why U.S. involvement in that country changed from time to time, but she bends over backwards to leave the "United States" and its official representatives as this nebulous entity. I am thankful and very impressed by how well the author conveys -- in prose -- what she witnessed, but I truly wish it hadn't been in such a mess of contradictions and hidden information. ( )

There is an incredible story here. But Forché's telling is also infuriating. The poetic writing style, the personal digressions, the unnecessary mystery. She is committed to telling her perspective of everything as it happened, but to me this was frustratingly unclear, not the most interesting part of the story—and it didn't even ring true. ( )