Dalton, Roque (1935–1975)

Roque Dalton was a writer and revolutionary born in El Salvador on May 14, 1935, and murdered on May [Page 419]10, 1975. He studied law and anthropology at the universities of El Salvador, Chile, and Mexico;worked in journalism;and dedicated himself to literature. He received several national and international awards. Because of his activities and militant politics, he was imprisoned several times and lived in exile in countries such as Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Korea, and North Vietnam.

During his life he wrote, struggled, suffered, loved, and died at the hands of his own companions, and that is why Dalton is a considered such a nuisance for those who still deny that another world is possible.

Dalton's literary works were published worldwide and have been gathered in dozens of anthologies (some of them bilingual) in the United States, Europe, and Latin America. Some of them are Mine, Together With the Birds (1958), The Window in the Face (poetry, Mexico, 1961, introduced by Mauricio de la Selva), Testimonies (poetry, La Habana, UNEAC, 1963), Cesar Vallejo (essay, LA Habana, 1963), The Other World (1963), Poems (1967), Intellectuals and Society (conversations with writers, Mexico D.F., 1969, translated to Italian), The Tavern and Other Poems (1969, Casa de las Americas Award), Little Hells (poetry, Barcelona, 1970, introduced by Jose Goytisolo), Is Revolution the Revolution? (1970), and The Forbidden Stories of Tom Thumb (prose and poems, Mexico, 1974). In 1997, Dalton was named “Meritorious Poet of the Republic”in El Salvador.