A novel that blends politics, history and romance with unfailing gentleness, unforeseeable, explosive events determine the actions of the characters but never interrupt the work's lyrical structure. Carmen Rojas, the heroine, was a child when, in 1932, she witnessed the brutality of the El Salvadoran National Guard, who murdered 30,000 rioting peasants. The tragedy shapes her political consciousness, and, although she marries an American and lives in Washington, D.C., she cannot escape its memory. Thirty years later, she returns home to attend her mother's funeral and to care for her sickly father, and discovers a diary kept by her mother's American lover in the months before the 1932 uprisings.
About the Author: Claribel Alegría: Born on May 12th 1924 in Estelí, Nicaragua. Her father, Daniel Alegría Rodríguez was Nicaraguan and her mother, Ana María Vides was Savadorean. When Claribel was only 9 months old her parents had to leave Nicaragua because they were opposed to the Unites States' occupation and were threatened. Claribel grew up in Santa Ana, El Salvador and she considers herself "Salva-Nica". When she was only 7 years old, she was an indirect witness of the campesino massacre of 1932, carried out by General Martínez. This terrible incident marked her for life and was perhaps the detonator of her deep commitment to social justice and human rights. In 1943 she left El Salvador to study in the Unites States where she met Darwin "Bud" Flakoll with whom she wrote many books, Ashes of Izalco being the first. Darwin J. Flakoll Born on February 20th 1923 in Wendte, South Dakota, he grew up in the Great Plains where his parents, Arthur and Alma, both of Norwegian descent, ran a rural school. The time he spent in South Dakota gave him a unique view of what the "Frontier" was really like and he would later on write short stories about his life there. His family later migrated to California where he studied and became a journalist. At 19 years of age, already graduated from College, he joined the and served as an officer on board destroyers during World War II both in the Pacific and Atlantic. After the war he met Claribel Alegría at George Washington University, they married in 1948 and formed a family. They both travelled extensively and lived in Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, France and Spain. In 1980 Bud and Claribel finaly settled down in Nicaragua where he died in 1995.