Quite often I have used my poetry as a sword, and I have brandished it against my internal and external demons. - Claribel Alegría Vides

I was a child, seven years old, when the 1932 massacre began. I carried it with me as a terrible wound. It wasn’t until years later that I decided to write Ashes of Izalcowith Bud in order to exercise myself from that time. Martinez won and he stayed in power until 1944 when our people ousted him. And then more dictators and more dictators until, we thought, This is it! We are going to be free. Look—we didn’t even win the revolution. Maybe I am stupid, because I am utopic, but I don’t think El Salvador will be the same even though our revolution didn’t win. The people aren’t going to be the same anymore. Something has happened. When I was writing Don’t Take Me Alive I interviewed many peasant women who told me they were never going to be as they were before. Now they know how to read and write, they know they are not inferior to men, they have done beautiful things right there with the guerrillas. It’s a step forward, and will help the other generations. I don’t think everything is lost. I don’t think El Salvador and Nicaragua are going to be what they were 20 years or 30 years ago.

For me, Spanish is one of the greatest heritages the Spaniards gave us, I adore my Spanish language. It would not be honest if I were to start writing in Nahuatl. I was born with the Spanish language; I was fed by the Spanish language. I could not write in any other language, Spanish is my mother language—I think in Spanish. When I am mad, no matter where I am—I would express myself in Spanish. (laughter) I would really like to study Nahuatl and I haven’t, which is my fault; it’s a beautiful language, but I could not incorporate it; I would not write in Nahuatl. But I would like our children to learn from this other richness of ours and take advantage of it. We have always submerged the Indian.

I will tell you one anecdote that was shattering to me: Right after the peace agreements Bud and I went to El Salvador and I wanted to go to Guasapa—one of the guerilla strongholds. I met an old lady there who said to me with tears in her eyes, “So why all of these wars? I lost my husband, I lost two of my children, I lost my son-in-law, for what?” I cried with her. I didn’t know what to tell her. As you said, she was wounded. That’s why people don’t want to talk about it. But this refusal to speak about it is transitory. Sooner or later we have to face it. We have to reach inside ourselves, and inside our people, too. It’s a lot of work, but something great is going to come from it. Maybe I will not be alive to see it.