Carolyn Forche: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance

KPFA Radio 94.1 FM presents

Carolyn Forche
What You Have Heard Is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance
Hosted by Dennis Bernstein

advance tickets: $12: T: 800-838-3006 or independent bookstores, $15 door, benefits KPFA Radio 94.1FM info: kpfa.org/events

Carolyn Forche is one of the most gifted poets of her generation. Her work-including Blue Hour, The Angel of History, The Country Between Us, and Gathering the Tribes-has been translated into more than twenty languages. For decades, however, the story of how she became an activist through trial by fire has lived inside her until now. Carolyn Forche was twenty-seven when the mysterious stranger appeared on her doorstep- a charming polymath with a mind as seemingly disordered as it was brilliant. She'd heard rumors about who he might be: a lone wolf, a communist, a CIA operative, a sharpshooter, a revolutionary, a small coffee farmer...He has driven from El Salvador to invite her to his country. Captivated, she accepts and becomes enmeshed in something beyond her comprehension as they meet with high-ranking military officers, impoverished farm workers, and clergy desperately trying to assist the poor and keep the peace. These encounters are a part of his plan to educate her. As priests and farm-workers are murdered and protest marches attacked, Forche is swept up in his work and in the lives of his friends. Pursued by death squads, sheltering in safe houses, the two forge a rich friendship as she attempts to make sense of what she's experiencing and establish a moral foothold amidst profound suffering. Forche learns how she can act as a witness and translate that into an art that might illumine the lives of others. That is "the poetry of witness."

What You Have Heard Is True- a riveting and essential account of a young woman's political awakening- is as beautiful as it is painful to read." - Claire Messud, author of The Burning Girl

$12 advance, $15 door.