First published 2019
Carolyn Forché is twenty-seven when Leonel arrives at her door after driving straight from El Salvador. Her friend has heard whispers about this enigmatic visitor. He could be a communist. A CIA agent. A revolutionary sharpshooter. A coffee farmer. No one knows his true identity. Despite the uncertainty, Forché accepts his invitation to visit his homeland and witness what unfolds there. She becomes drawn into the opening phases of a brutal civil war. The state unleashes death squads against its own citizens. Over one hundred thousand people will die in the violence that follows. Forché moves between peasant settlements and the mansions of retired generals. She joins protest marches and flees through safe houses. Her journey becomes a story of one woman choosing radical empathy in the face of systematic brutality and her life-changing encounter with a man whose true nature remains elusive.
Genres: historical-fiction, biography-memoir, activism, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, radical-empathy
Setting: El Salvador
Period: 20th-century
ebook · Penguin
Content warnings: violence, war