Place: El Salvador

Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

Literary updates from The Philippines, Central America, and North Macedonia!

In this week of literary updates, our news range from recent award winners to support for incarcerated writers by PEN centres around the globe. Read further to catch up on the Guadalajara International Book fair, PEN Philippines’ statement on ‘The Day of the Imprisoned Writer,’ and a new contribution to Macedonian cultural studies!

Alton Melvar M Dapanas, Editor-at-Large, reporting from the Philippines

On ‘The Day of the Imprisoned Writer,’ commemorated annually November 15, PEN Philippines joined PEN centres across the globe in issuing a statement calling for the release of Filipino poets Amanda Socorro Lacaba Echanis, Adora Faye de Vera, and Benito C. Quilloy, children’s book author Eduardo Sarmiento, and journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio—incarcerated writers who have been arrested on trumped-up charges and detained for years. “We continue to raise our voices to call for their release, and for the Philippine government to serve these detainees the justice that is due them under our system of laws—as is but right,” the statement declared. 

PEN centres globally have also demanded the release of Iryna Danylovych (Occupied Crimea), María Cristina Garrido Rodríguez (Cuba), Soulaimane Raissouni (Morocco), and Go Sherab Gyatso (Occupied Tibet). “PEN Philippines has been championing this cause for the past 65 years, and we continue to uphold that advocacy,” PEN Philippines furthers.

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Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

The latest from Central America, Spain, and China!

This week, our Editors-at-Large bring us around the world for the latest of literary news! From a brilliant cast of Central American authors at Madrid’s upcoming literary festival, to an inside glimpse into Spain’s translation residencies, to a thought-provoking workshop at China’s aBC Art Book Fair, read on to learn more!

José García Escobar, Editor-at-Large, reporting for Central America

Central America’s brightest stars are about to come together yet again!

On September 18, the latest edition of the region’s most celebrated literary festival, Centro América Cuenta, will kick off in Madrid, Spain!

This time, Centro América Cuenta will gather regional talents such as Arnoldo Gálvez Suárez (Guatemala), Cindy Regidor (Nicaragua), Horacio Castellanos Moya (El Salvador), Mónica Albizúrez (Guatemala), Rodrigo Rey Rosa (Guatemala), and Sergio Ramírez (Nicaragua), next to Latin American and Spanish writers such as Mónica Ojeda (Ecuador) and Patricio Pron (Argentina). One high point of the festival will occur on September 18, when former president of Costa Rica, Luis Guillermo Solís, and former Guatemalan jurist living in exile, Thelma Aldana, will gather to discuss the current state of democracy in Central America.

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Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

The latest in world literature from Sweden, Guatemala, and Ireland!

This week, Asymptote‘s Editors-at-Large take us around the global literary scene, featuring book fairs and the highlights of Women in Translation Month! From the multimedia cultural event Bokmässan by Night in Sweden to the Taiwan/Ireland Poetry Translation Competition, read on to learn more!

Eva Wissting, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Sweden

A month from today, it will be time for Scandinavia’s largest literary event, the Göteborg Book Fair—an event spanning four days with around eight hundred exhibitors and the same amount of seminar speakers. Started in 1985, it now attracts eighty-five thousand writers, publishers, librarians, teachers, and book lovers every year. This year’s themes are Jewish Culture, The City, and Audio. The club concept Bokmässan by Night was introduced last year, which combines bar hopping with various cultural experiences. The fair has now announced that Bokmässan by Night will return on September 29 with four stages, five bars, multiple DJs, and stage performances. The evening includes Swedish writers and dramatists Jonas Hassen Khemiri—known to Asymptote readers through pieces like I Call My Brothers and Only in New York—and Agneta Pleijel, whose novel A Fortune Foretold was published in Marlaine Delargy’s English translation by Other Press in 2017. Bokmässan by Night will also offer live literary criticism with critics Mikaela Blomqvist, Jesper Högström and Valerie Kyeyune Backström, as well as live podcasts, including Flora Wiström’s Röda rummet—a literary podcast which borrows its name from the Swedish Modernist writer and playwright August Strindberg’s 1879 debut novel The Red Room. While Bokmässan by Night is an in-person experience, many other events during the fair are available online through Book Fair Play

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Compass and Rifle: On Roque Dalton’s Stories and Poems of a Class Struggle

No one escapes Dalton’s inquisitive pen . . .

Stories and Poems of a Class Struggle by Roque Dalton, translated from the Spanish by Jack Hirschman, Seven Stories Press, 2023

On Thursday, July 6, 2023, the inaugural day of Guatemala’s International Book Fair (FILGUA), the government of El Salvador requested organizers to exclude Salvadoran author Michelle Recinos’ Sustancia de hígado (F&G Editores) from the fair. The next day, online news outlet elfaro revealed that El Salvador’s ambassador in Guatemala had said, “It would’ve been an unpleasant thing for the government of El Salvador if this book had been a part of the fair.” Details are scarce, but presumably, this action was related to Michelle’s story Barberos en huelga, winner of the 2022 Mario Monteforte Toledo Prize, which openly criticizes sitting president Nayib Bukele’s war on gangs. 

Hearing this, I can only imagine what Roque Dalton would have written about Bukele. 

Roque Dalton’s Historias y poemas de una lucha de clases (Stories and Poems of a Class Struggle) dates back to 1975, and remains as timely as ever. In a time when most Central American countries are under authoritarian regimes and have experienced backslides of democracy, the life and work of Roque Dalton is at once a beacon of hope, an inspiration, and a warning sign. Historias y poemas de una lucha de clases is a book filled with courageous testimony, the poet’s typical dry humor, and bone-chilling depictions of state violence. Here, Dalton is hyperaware of the pain and plight of his compatriots, but in addition to his typical grittiness and social critique, we also find tenderness, softness, beauty, and frailty; Dalton’s acute perception is both a rifle and a compass, manifesting in words of both rebuke and encouragement. 

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Weekly Dispatches From the Frontlines of World Literature

The latest from Spain and Central America!

In this week of literary news, we hear from our Editors-at-Large on Spanish-speaking countries around the world! From Spanish-Romanian literary intermingling in Spain, to recent award winners across Central America, to medium-bending poetry across sound and space in Mexico, read on to learn more!

MARGENTO, Editor-at-Large, reporting on Spain

As the summer season is kicking in and tourists are about to take over Spain—as is the usual for this time of the year—certain portions of the literary world are seeming to gain fresh momentum. That goes particularly for the transnational and translational endeavors. 

The latest issue of the Madrid-based literary journal Ágora – Papeles de Arte Gramático offers a rich overview of contemporary Spanish poetry while including a generous Catalan special feature. A substantive section on Romanian literature is also featured, with reviews of Encarnación García León’s recent anthology of Romanian fiction in Spanish translation and articles on Spanish translations of the legendary writer and internationally revered religion phenomenologist Mircea Eliade and the symbolist Ion Minulescu. 

Moreover, the issue opens with poems by past Asymptote contributor Felix Nicolau in Elisabeta Boțan’s Spanish translation and some of Fernando Pessoa’s celebrated poems in Dinu Flămând’s Romanian rendering. The journal has had a long-standing interest in Romanian-Spanish literary cross-pollinations, as a previous issue featured a sizeable section dedicated to the Romanian inter-war writer Max Blecher, who passed away at the age of 28 after spending a decade ill, confined to his bed, and writing literature that would later be widely translated. Blecher’s collected poems in Spanish translation, edited by Joaquín Garrigós, was a highlight of the issue. Ágora’s Editor-in-Chief Fulgencio Martínez warmly recommends to his readers the summer issue of another Madrid-based journal, Littera Nova, profuse with Romanian writing. 

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Translation Tuesday: “Zinc” by Róger Lindo

The rodent will be captivated, as I will, by the hailstones lashing against the roof.

Salvadoran poet Róger Lindo tr. Matthew Byrne sets a tempestuous scene: a night storm both ethereal and mundane that compels all, from the dormouse to the soldier, to collective awe. This Translation Tuesday, we invite you to bear witness to ‘the nocturnal splendor’.

“Zinc”

I have only hubris and kindness.

–G. Ungaretti

Beastly storm.
A dormouse peers out halfway.
The rodent will be captivated, as I will,
by the hailstones
lashing against the roof.
The city mnemonist is here,
a soldier yearning,
drawing near, intrigued by
the nocturnal splendor.
I’ve been a solitary worker bee
in the afternoon,
but I’ve also sung
plowing the soil.
When the rain eases off,
we’re alone with the crickets.

Translated from the Spanish by Matthew Byrne.

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Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

Dispatches from Central America, Sweden, and Hong Kong!

This week at Asymptote, our Editors at Large report on the use of artificial intelligence in publishing, the return of in-person events in Hong Kong’s literary scene, and exciting award announcements! From a new book of poetry to multi-disiplinary festivals, read on to learn more!

José García Escobar, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Central America

In February, Guatemalan poet Eduardo Villalobos published his latest book of poems entitled Ixtab (Catafixia Editorial), which draws inspiration from the Mesoamerican deity of suicide. Ixtab is Eduardo’s fourth book of poems, and he remains one of Guatemala’s most celebrated poets today. He has been invited to renowned festivals in Guatemala and around the world, such as the Copenhagen Literature Festival and the Festival Internacional de Poesía de Quetzaltenango.

Also in February, Slash and Burn by El Salvadorean writer Claudia Hernández and translated by Julia Sanches, was announced as the runner-up of the Premio Valle Iclán, awarded each year by the UK’s The Society of Authors. Hernández is the author of four novels and several short story collections and in 2004, she earned the prestigious Anna Seghers Prize. Slash and Burn was also shortlisted for the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute Translation Prize.

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Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

The latest in literary news from Belgium, Palestine, and Central America!

This week, our editors are introducing the most exciting literary voices with prize winners, debut novels, and familiar favourites. From El Salvador, a millennial writer wins the prestigious Mario Monteforte Toledo Award for a short story critical of the Salvadoran regime; from the Francophone, the latest winner of the unconventional Sade Prize is announced; and from Palestine, a lament as beloved poet Mahmoud Darwish is missed for the Nobel.

Katarina Gadze, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Belgium

This week, we’re taking a look at some of the eagerly awaited literary events that have been making waves in Belgium. Brussels has recently come across a number of interesting literary events: the closing event of Poetik Bozar, with an evening of reading and performances of Warsan Shire and her translators Radna Fabias (Dutch) and Sika Fakambi (French); the upcoming The wonders of multilingualism #3: to translate or not to translate?; as well as the Writers & Thinkers stage at the Bozar centre, a richly filled series of talks and debates welcoming some of the greatest contemporary voices such as Orhan PamukRachel Cusk, and Ian Kershaw.

A handy digest of the week’s Belgian literary news would also not be complete without mentioning some well-deserved prize winners. After an initial selection of forty books, the Hors Concours prize has revealed its shortlist with only five novels remaining in the running. As a “prize for publishing without a price,” the Hors Concours honors French-language books of fiction published by independent publishers—giving the rarely awarded authors a chance to access a larger audience in the competitive Francophone publishing landscape. Among the five books still in the running for the prize is Belgian writer Veronika Mabardi’s story Sauvage est celui qui se sauve, published this January by Esperluète. Other titles include: Le bord du monde est vertical by Simon Parcot (Le mot et le reste), L’arbre de colère by Guillaume Aubin (La contre-allée), Histoire navrante de la mission Mouc-Marc by Frédéric Sounac (Anacharsis), and Il n’y a pas d’arc-en-ciel au paradis by Nétonon Noël Ndjékéry (Hélice Hélas). The announcement of the winning novel, as well as the honorable mention, will be made on November 28. READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

Literary news from India, El Salvador, and Guatemala!

Our team of editors across the world is back with the latest literary news as summer winds down. In India, the recently released longlist for a major literary prize has put translations  center stage. In El Salvador, a newly published book of poetry interrogates the concept of terrorism in Central America and the United States. In Guatemala, the city of Mazatenango played host to an international book festival. Read on to find out more!

Areeb Ahmad, Editor-at-Large, reporting on India

First awarded in 2018, the JCB Prize for Literature is India’s biggest literary prize and is given every year to “a distinguished work of fiction by an Indian author.” It is one of those rare prizes that gives equal attention to books originally written in English and translations from other languages, without putting them into separate categories as the Booker does. In a first for the prize, there are six translated titles out of the ten that comprise the 2022 longlist, which came out on September 3. This far exceeds the previous record of three longlisted translations. Two of this year’s longlisted books were translated from Urdu, and the rest were translated from Hindi, Malayalam, Bengali, and Nepali. One notable exclusion is Nireeswaran by V.J. James, whose novel Anti-Clock (translated from Malayalam by Ministhy S., who also translated Nireeswaran) was shortlisted last year.

Geetanjali Shree’s Tomb of Sand, translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell, needs no introduction. After winning the International Booker Prize earlier this year, its chances of taking home the JCB Prize are high. Another promising title is Sheela Tomy’s Valli, a work of eco-fiction translated from Malayalam by Jayasree Kalathil. Kalathil’s translation of S. Hareesh’s magical realist novel, Moustache, won in 2020 , meaning three of the prize’s four past winners were originally written in Malayalam.

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Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

New poems, book fair discussions, and online publications from Thailand, El Salvador, and Palestine!

This week, our editors from around the world report on an international poetry volume in support of human rights, an author talk between two Salvadoran poets, and an online exploration of the history of Jerusalem that includes a wealth of Palestinian literature. Read on to find out more!

Peera Songkünnatham, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Thailand

Five Thai poems got a chance to shine in the company of poems in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Swahili. On June 15, the Human Rights Defenders Poetry Challenge, organized by Protection International together with its partners from ProtectDefenders.eu and the University of York, concluded with an awards ceremony and a booklet launch. As part of the #StayWithDefenders campaign, the challenge called on “all creatives, activists and advocates for human rights” to submit poems honoring those who “have suffered, succeeded, fought and fallen.” The top three winners were announced from a pool of thirty finalists, five from each of the languages. You can read the booklet here; every poem not originally in English is accompanied by an English translation. How nice it is for poets to slip through the political and poetical confines of their countries into an ad-hoc international space, at least virtually on Zoom and in translation.

“To be a poet in this country is like being in a cage,” stated Mek Krueng Fah about Thailand upon winning third place overall. His poem “Remember, we’re all by your side” (โปรดจำไว้.. เราต่างอยู่ข้างเธอ) manages to console even as it stares into an unrelenting bleakness: “On the road of fighters that will know no end, / The ones who came before lie dead, uncovered; / Their bodies caution ‘watch your step, my friend,’ / And nightly, to protect, their spirits hover.”

First place went to “The Full Truth” (Ukweli Kamili) by Martin Mwangi from Kenya. The poem deftly impersonates the flippant attitudes of shrewd politicians who speak in half-truths: “Welcome, it is here that we will give you vegetable rice while we eat pilau rice / then if you complain we’ll say be thankful at least you ate. / However, for how long shall you live with these half-truths of at least? / I don’t know, answer that yourself.” Second place was awarded to María del Campo from Uruguay, whose “To Those Afraid of Windmills” (A quienes les temen los molinos) will make human rights defenders—“those who slip through the cracks and pose a threat to the wall as bridge, brick, step, door”—feel seen and touched. READ MORE…

Translation Tuesday: Three Poems from Time is a Cryptic Text by Lauri García Dueñas

time is more and more social protests listened to less and less

This Translation Tuesday, time acts as the grand cipher that the Salvadoran poet Lauri García Dueñas seeks to decode from its twenty-first century entanglements. Originally published by Proyecto Literal in 2012 (one of the forerunners in promoting experimental works from Latin America today), these three poems from Time is a Cryptic Text begin with simple propositions about time’s essence and nature. But as they churn on, the poems’ words shudder like atoms trying to break loose from their bonds with each other, and time turns out to be completely polluted and punctured by the social and political world. Olivia Lott’s translation brims with this accelerated energy; each poem, like a movement in a grand symphony, contains its own music and cacophony. 

“As García Dueñas’s title indicates, the book’s fifty-two poems (or single poem in fifty-two parts) departs from an obsession with time as a conventionally unquestioned organizer of existence. Through avant-garde formal devices––like stream of consciousness, relentless enjambment, and the absolute defiance of capitalization and punctuation––the texts seek their own encryption, asking the reader to look between the cracks. There, they’ll find many things: from an x-ray deconstruction of Mexico City (where García Dueñas lived for several years) to a love poem that doesn’t want to be one. In translating these poems, I have privileged their rhythm, opting for a sped-up English to match their urgent political drive and to keep the poetic experiment front and center. This is especially important, I think, when translating a writer from El Salvador, given the expectations for neo-realism and testimony historically placed on Central American writers—not to mention the exclusion of the region’s avant-gardes from both Latin Americanist and comparative conversations. Time is a Cryptic Text is both politically committed and formally innovative.” 

—Olivia Lott

2

 

time is also nervation african bees searching their honeycomb for death this frenetic pleasure of parallelepiped writing uninterrupted this dark swollen-cheek sun the wind lacan flipping through books in the gandhi on miguel ángel de quevedo the telephone rrring sounds like a naked body two naked bodies thorns fish gliding on the sidewalk pedestrians walking over the fish the young musician yelling out to people to please stop stepping on the fish you’re hurting them but people never understand anything the fish are the foundation of this lacustrine city sky turned to water madness tip of the scar i spread infected words not one period instead of the other you’re not real i can’t find the syllables or the start of the nervation it means nothing i walk fast a type of solitude burrows a nest in me nothing touches the ground i don’t want anything from you i say it again i’m not convinced i’m always late peach flowers intersect the eyes of other eyes petals time grinds its teeth when it sleeps the young musician builds spaces to live in sounds of bold colors it all escapes our own volition but i want to play with death and yell burn burn i’m peeling you off of me you’re hurting me phrases in the darkness time isn’t real (i don’t think it is) READ MORE…

Weekly Dispatches From the Front Lines of World Literature

Translation competitions, new publications, and poetry readings from Japan, Guatemala, and El Salvador!

This week, our editors from around the globe report on a translation competition and an event to support Ukraine in Japan, the publication of a harrowing new memoir from Guatemala, and a celebration of women poets in El Salvador. Read on to find out more!

Mary Hillis, Educational Arm Assistant, reporting from Japan

Give Artists a Voice was held on March 15 at the Goethe-Institut in Tokyo and live-streamed on social media. Organized by EUNIC Japan and E.U. member cultural institutions and cultural departments in Japan, artists expressed their support of Ukraine through music, film, poetry, dance, and talks. Joining from Kharkiv, contemporary artist Olia Fedorova read text in Ukrainian documenting life during the war. Poet Marie Iljašenko read “Five poems from collection St. Outdoor” in Czech and Yoko Tawada read “Auszeit von Menschheit” (“Timeout from Humanity”) in German. Michal Hvorecký, author of the novel Troll (published in Slovak in 2017), delivered a message on disinformation and literary translation as a vehicle for deeper understanding.

Earlier in the month, at Bungaku Days Spring 2022, the award winners of the JLPP (Japanese Literature Publishing Project) sixth International Translation Competition were recognized: English grand prize winner Grant Lloyd and Spanish grand prize winner Eduardo López Herrero. Contestants translated two texts, “Namiuchigiwa made” by Maki Kashimada in the fiction category and “Ojigi” by Kuniko Mukōda in the criticism and essay category. The original texts and winning translations can be read on the JLPP website.

Designed to both recognize and provide support for emerging translators of contemporary Japanese literature, the event began with a prerecorded video showcasing comments from the judges and messages from the top three awardees in English and Spanish respectively. Former contest winners Polly Barton and Sam Bett joined this year’s winner, Grant Lloyd, for a symposium on the topic of becoming a translator, moderated by Yoshio Hitomi of Waseda University. They discussed Lloyd’s prize-winning translations and also analyzed the challenges of working with stories, novels, and essays from Japanese, while revisiting steps on their journeys to becoming literary translators. The publishing panel was moderated by Allison Markin Powell and included Anne Meadows (Granta Books), Yuka Igarashi (Graywolf Press), and Tynan Kogane (New Directions), who discussed their points of view on pitching, the acquisition process, and barriers to publishing literature in English translation. The seventh edition of the competition is now in progress and entries are being accepted in English and French.

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Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

The latest literary news from Taiwan, El Salvador, and Sri Lanka.

This week, Asymptote team members report on a Taiwanese science-fiction novel that’s caught the attention of Japan’s literary establishment, a poetic commemoration of a 1975 tragedy in El Salvador, and a Sri Lankan press that promises to be the first of its kind. Discover the latest from around the world, then catch up on this week’s blog entries, including a review of Asymptote‘s July book club pick.

Darren Huang, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Taiwan

In July, Taiwanese novelist Li Kotomi (Li Qinfeng) was awarded one of Japan’s most prestigious literary prizes, the Akutagawa Prize, for her novel “Higanbana ga Saku Shima” (An Island Where Red Spider Lily Blooms). The novel, which incorporates elements of science fiction, concerns a girl narrator, Umi, who drifts to an imagined island between Taiwan and Japan. The island is governed by women who lead the religious ceremonies and political affairs, while men are excluded from government. The islanders speak a language called “nihon” and another called “female language,” which can only be learned by women over a certain age and is used to pass on the history of the island. Qinfeng has remarked that for thousands of years, patriarchal societies have written official history through the perspectives of men. In this novel, she reflects on the imbalance of history-making by imagining a community where women control the writing and inheritance of history. Qinfeng’s win is unique as she is the second writer whose native tongue is not Japanese to be awarded the prize. Her accomplishment was also well received in Taiwan, where she is considered one of the first Taiwanese writers to be recognized by the Japanese literary establishment. Previous winners of the award include Mieko Kawakami for Breasts and Eggs and Hiroko Oyamada for The Hole.

Despite the recent escalation of the pandemic in Taiwan, the cultural minister Lee Yung-te emphasized that the Taiwanese arts, especially in literature, illustration, and film, continue to flourish. Literature and art museums have continued their exhibitions with COVID precautions. Notably, the National Museum of Taiwan Literature is celebrating a century of progressive literature and thinking through its exhibition, “A Century of Heartfelt Sentiment,” which started on May 8. The show is organized into a series of love letters, or writings and works from authors, painters, and other artists, focusing on six essential intellectuals of the last century. The exhibition includes the manuscripts of the poet Lai Ho, the diary of the social activist Tsai Pei-huo, the artworks of the painter Tan Ting-pho, and works of music from the era of Japanese occupation.

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Weekly Dispatches from the Front Lines of World Literature

The latest news from Central America, China, and the Vietnamese diaspora!

Want to keep up with the newest literary developments across the world? This week, our team members cover: an academic conversation on the state of Central American literature, the gargantuan literary output commemorating the centenary of the Chinese Communist Party, as well as the politics and poetics of translation in the film and literature of the Vietnamese diaspora. Read on to find out more!

Nestor Gomez, Editor-at-Large, reporting from El Salvador

Cátedra Centroamerica, an online space for academic analysis of Central America, recently held a series of talks on Zoom focusing on the state of art and literature in the Central American region since its independence about 200 years ago. The conversation, held on July 2, revolved around the question of the future of Central American art and literature after 200 years of independence.

Alexandra Ortiz Wallner, a researcher who specializes in Central American literature and culture at the Freie Univesitat Berlin, presented a “literary roadmap” on how Central American literature has developed after the turn of the century. Currently, Central America is in a postwar era following the wars, dictatorships, and political upheavals of the 1970s to the 1990s. The transition from war to democracy and peace has had two notable effects in the identities, histories, and cultures of Central Americans. The first effect is the mass exodus of Central Americans to settle in other parts of the world. This mass migration has redefined the borders of Central America and the identity of Central Americans as people living in the region of the isthmus. Because of the large and growing size of the Central American diaspora, Central Americans are redefining themselves as global citizens. Secondly, the rise of alternative publishing through social media has provided new spaces that welcome new literary voices in postwar Central America. These new literary voices have led the movement in reconstructing political and cultural identities as well as histories of individual Central American countries into a new, shared regional identity and culture that includes the diaspora.

Wallner also shared an example of postwar literature, Horacio Castellano Moya’s novel El Arma En El Hombre, which describes a new aesthetic of violence. This new violence is born in the urban environment of a postwar city. There is no explanation as to where this violence originated from and the main character of the novel, a displaced ex-soldier, is left alone in the city to combat this new urban violence that attacks from every corner: politics, economy, education, society, family, etc. El Arma En El Hombre is a key novel that aptly foretells the state of affairs in Central America. It describes perpetual chaos and oppression as the normal state of everyday lives of Central Americans. READ MORE…