SOURCE: "An Interview with Claribel Alegría," in Index on Censorship, Vol. 13, No. 2, April, 1984, pp. 11-13.

In the following essay, Alegría discusses her childhood, the pressures of living in exile, and the difficulty of translating poetry.

[FORCHÉ]: Gabriel Garcia Márquez has stated that the most significant period of his life, the richest years, were those of his childhood, before he reached eleven years of age. Is this true for you?

[ALEGRÍA]: I think Garcia Márquez is correct in that what happens to one in earliest childhood is definitive. I was very much marked by the peasant uprising in El Salvador in 1932. I remember the Guardias Nacionales bringing dozens of prisoners into the fortress across the street from my home with their thumbs tied behind them with bits of cord, shoving them along with rifle butts. I remember the shots at night. I remember the...