2019 National Book Award Finalist“Reading it will change you, perhaps forever.” —San Francisco Chronicle“Astonishing, powerful, so important at this time.” –Margaret AtwoodWhat You Have Heard is True is a devastating, lyrical, and visionary memoir about a young woman’s brave choice to engage with horror in order to help others. Written by one of the most gifted poets of her generation, this is … the most gifted poets of her generation, this is the story of a woman’s radical act of empathy, and her fateful encounter with an intriguing man who changes the course of her life.
Carolyn Forché is twenty-seven 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.
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Carolyn Forché asks us not only to hear, but to see, the scale of human and moral devastation in El Salvador. For those of us who are citizens and residents of the United States, Forché’s powerful, moving, and disturbing memoir also demands that we recognize our country’s responsibility for the atrocities committed by the El Salvadoran military. As is the case with her poetry, Forché’s nonfiction asserts the need for truth—in our politics, in our writing, in our witnessing.
In this searing, vital memoir, Carolyn Forché at last reveals the dark stories behind her famous early poems: she brings alive the brutality, complexity and idealism of El Salvador in the late 1970s, a time of revolution that echoes all too painfully in the present. What You Have Heard Is True, a riveting and essential account of a young woman’s political and human awakening, is as beautiful as it is painful to read.
Really increased my knowledge about the U.S. involvement in Central American politics.
A little pedantic but fascinating view of the ugly years in Central America.
This isn’t an easy read but worth the time because it gives you another perspective on our world and how little we really know.
Amazing how truth is indeed stranger than fiction. Great record of our changing world!
I wanted to like this book but I found it hard to read. Too many specifics to set it up before any action or real story. I don’t think I’ll finish it
Vitally important for Americans to understand our disruptive, damaging and poor understanding of our Central American neighbors and of the evil actions of our government.
Very inspirational! Almost heart-breaking because it’s true. A rare opportunity for the author to gain inspiration otherwise unavailable.
What an incredible book. Covers third world poverty, Us Government Support for brutal dictators in Latin America (because of US fear of communism), life in El Salvador, both rich and poor… all through the vision and voice of a Young American poet, as a local revolutionary exposes her and through her exposes the reader to the reality of life under a brutal dictatorship. The books reads like a novel rather then a autobiographical narrative.
I highly recommend this autobiographical novel.
Having a daughter in the Peace Corps serving in El Salvador, I was able to gain a valuable insight into the conditions that precipitated the civil war when I visited the country in 2000. While no longer at war, the average citizens did not have an easy life. US involvement in the war was probably for the wrong reasons. And is so true, in a war no one wins. Excellent over-view of the pre- and post- war situations in the country.
What You Have Heard Is True is a gorgeous and haunting memoir. This book is about a country on the verge of Civil War but it’s also about one poet’s education–how she is called to serve, and in doing so, she learns to see the world in all of its horror and beauty. This memoir is full of adventure and history, and at the same time, every lyrical sentence is pitch perfect. This memoir is a true masterpiece and will prove to be one of the most important books published in decades.
This luminous book stands beside the memoirs of Pablo Neruda and Czeslaw Milosz in its account of a poet’s education, the struggle of a great artist to be worthy of her gifts. Carolyn Forché’s prose is shamanic: it sees both the surface of things and their inner workings, it animates the inanimate world.
Carolyn Forché’s beautifully rendered story of the intimate and often harrowing encounters that shaped her life is a testament to her singular gifts as a poet of extraordinary courage and grace. Forché does more than just bear witness to a world corrupted by politics and violence; she listens and acts, and in doing so she has created a work of art forged by her faith in language and justice, a story that is haunting and indelible, urgent and timeless.