AUTHOR & EDITOR
Claribel Alegría was born in Estelí, Nicaragua in 1924 and grew up in El Salvador. She has long been recognized as a major voice in the struggle for liberation in El Salvador, and in Central America. She has published over forty books including many volumes of poetry, a number of novels and a book of children's stories. Ten of her books of poetry and fiction have been translated into English, including Ashes of Izalco, Luisa in Realityland, Family Album, Fugues, Thresholdsand Sorrowfrom Curbstone Press. She has received several awards in Latin America and Spain, and her book of poetry, Sobrevivo,received a Casa de las Américas Prize. She is presented in the Bill Moyers Language of Life series that first aired on PBS in 1995. Claribel Alegría and her husband, Darwin J. Flakoll, have collaborated on a number of testimonies including Death of Somoza, Tunnel to Canto Grande, The Sandinista Revolution, and They'll Never Take Me Alive.Their vivid documentation of key dramatic events in Latin American history has earned them international recognition. They also collaborated on the novel Ashes of Izalco, set in El Salvador in 1932, the year of the matanza (massacre). Since Darwin Flakoll died in 1995, Claribel Alegría has continued to reside at their home in Managua.
“Alegría is a stirring presence both in person and in her poetry. Few have been able to re-create so passionately the struggle and resistance of the Central American people and few possess her extraordinary gift for naming the dead. This places her work within the framework of Central American political and social history as well as of history reconstructed from oblivion.” -- Marjorie Agosín, Américas
Works by Claribel Alegría from Curbstone Press:
