Stories and Poems of a Class Struggle / Historias y poemas de una lucha de clases by Roque Dalton

Translated by Jack Hirschman (Seven Stories Press, paperback)

Publication Date: September 12th, 2023

Publisher Marketing: Poems of revolution by one of Latin America’s most beloved poets

One of Latin America’s greatest poets, Roque Dalton was a revolutionary whose politics were inseparable from his art. Born in El Salvador in 1935, Dalton dedicated his life to fighting for social justice, while writing fierce, tender poems about his country and its people. In Stories and Poems of a Class Struggle, he explores oppression and resistance through the lens of five poetic personas, each with their own distinct voice. These poems show a country caught in the crosshairs of American imperialism, where the few rule the many and the many struggle to survive—and yet there is joy and even humor to be found here, as well as an abiding faith in humanity. In striking, immediate, exuberantly inventive language, Dalton captures the ethos of a people, as stirring now as when the book was first published forty years ago. “I believe the world is beautiful,” he writes, “and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.”