San Sebastian, El Salvador. Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Villalta.
Consider a country where poets have led revolutionary movements, where writers have been disappeared, exiled, and even assassinated for their work—a country where the literary has rarely ever come without risk. This is El Salvador.
Perhaps the most famous, and certainly among the most recognized in a US literary context, is Roque Dalton, whose poetry espoused leftist visions of a liberated future for Salvadorans. Dalton’s widely circulated poem, “Como Tú,” was translated by Jack Hirschman and first published in Poemas clandestinos in 1977, two years after Dalton’s assassination. In the poem, Dalton affirms that poetry, like bread, is for everyone. This statement has been popularized in some US literary spaces, though the Salvadoran literary context is not always known. Likening poetry to bread is not only an assertion of basic human rights, but an insistence on the power of the literary—the knowledge that poetry, too, has long been a nutritive and sustaining force for Salvadorans.
The revolutionary legacy of the Salvadoran literary tradition does not begin or end with Roque Dalton. NER‘s recently published folio on Contemporary Salvadoran Writing in Translation edited by Alexandra Lytton Regalado includes the work of several writers who are building upon the revolutionary literary tradition in El Salvador—writers who have faced varying forms of risk, censorship, and exile, but whose words speak truth to power at a vital moment in Salvadoran history. These writers include acclaimed novelist Jorge Galán, who was forced into exile after publishing Noviembre (2015), a novel about the 1989 Jesuit massacre. Based on testimonies and archival research, the book broke decades of silence around one of the country’s most politically sensitive crimes. Even before it was available in Salvadoran bookstores, Galán received dozens of threats because he dared to speak names. Galán was told by authorities that the state could not guarantee his safety and so he fled the country. Michelle Recinos, whose work is also included in the folio, received international attention regarding censorship when her book was pulled from the program of Guatemala’s international book fair after a request from the Salvadoran government. Her story “Barberos en huelga”—a sharp critique of mass incarceration and authoritarian policy—was part of a collection that won two major literary prizes: the Premio Centroamericano de Cuento Caratula and the Premio Monteforte Toledo Cuento 2022.
El Salvador’s political and economic history has been intimately tied to US interests and intervention since at least the nineteenth century, when the US began to depend on exploited Salvadoran laborers to supply cheap coffee for the American public. By the twentieth century, the United States’s vested interests in El Salvador had grown significantly to involve deeper political control of the Central American region. Throughout the Salvadoran Civil War (1979–1992), El Salvador received an estimated six billion in funding from the US. Of the extensive human rights violations committed during wartime, 85 percent were attributed to the State, as recorded by the Report of the UN Truth Commission on El Salvador. This government-led violence left an indelible mark on El Salvador as the country moved into the twenty-first century. The decades that have followed have been impacted by the legacies of imperialism and late-stage capitalism, including political instability, ongoing socioeconomic hardship, deeply rooted trauma, and mass displacement to the US and elsewhere. Forced migration and systemic inequities led to gangs like MS-13 forming in Los Angeles, and deportation brought gangs back to El Salvador. The rise of the current authoritarian president and self-proclaimed “world’s coolest dictator” Nayib Bukele is, among many other reasons, a symptom of decades of hardship and the legacies of US imperialism in El Salvador.
On March 27, 2022, Nayib Bukele introduced a state of exception to El Salvador, which suspended constitutional rights including due process and has enabled arbitrary arrests, prolonged detention, inhumane prison conditions, and increased militarization and policing. While the state of exception was initially approved for a thirty-day period, it continues to the present day, over three years since it was first announced. Since then, the Salvadoran people have experienced numerous human rights violations and the significant deterioration of democratic values throughout the country. In fact, El Salvador now holds the title for the country with the highest incarceration rate per capita. The state of exception has been denounced by many human rights activists, organizers, and international solidarity organizations including the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), Cristosal, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, among others. This year, the reach of El Salvador’s carceral system has expanded internationally, as Trump and Bukele’s partnership has led to the imprisonment of US deportees in El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center prison, otherwise known as CECOT. As El Salvador becomes a critical player in advancing Trump’s deportation agenda, it is all the more urgent for US writers and readers to become informed and to hear directly from Salvadoran writers.
In the effort to document how writers in El Salvador have responded to the state of exception and rising authoritarianism in the country, I spoke with educator, writer, and editor Ricardo Hernández Pereira. Hernández Pereira is the author of two short story collections, Soft Machine (Índole Editores, 2021) and Los lugares que abandonamos (Editorial Universitaria, 2024), which won the National Prize for the Short Story José María Méndez in 2023. Hernández Pereira has edited several anthologies, including serving as a co-editor for Daños Colaterales [Collateral Damage], an anthology of short fiction written under and about the state of exception in El Salvador. Daños Colaterales was completed in March 2024 and launched as a digital archive in November 2024. The anthology is discussed further in the interview below.
Janel Pineda: Along with Derlin de Leon, Ilich Rauda, and Óscar González Márquez, you edited the impactful collection Daños Colaterales, which was published in 2024, two years into the country’s state of exception. The state of exception is a legal instrument that enables the State to suspend constitutional rights in extraordinary circumstances, which has been extended to the present day. To date, thousands of innocent people have been released due to lack of evidence, and nearly three hundred people have lost their lives behind bars. Daños Colaterales is composed of fourteen stories that explore and expose the human rights violations committed under the current state of exception in El Salvador. Can you tell us about your editorial team’s motivation to compile this anthology? What did you hope to accomplish with Daños Colaterales?
Ricardo Hernández Pereira: Every artist has their own themes and specific sensibilities [within their work]. As the world knows, El Salvador is currently undergoing radical changes—changes which have not gone unnoticed by me and other writers. Things happen that impact and influence the way we experience the day-to-day, only to return later, transformed into songs, paintings, and, in this case, short stories. With Derlin, Ilich, and Óscar, who joined us later, we decided to share some texts that revolved around the state of exception in El Salvador, primarily as a creative exercise and as an exercise in memory. Then, we thought of asking other fiction writers if they had any texts on the same theme. We extended an open invitation, and it turned out that most writers already had (or were working on) material that engaged with the phenomenon [of the state of exception]. That is another detail that is worth highlighting: In recent years, many independent publishers have opted to publish short stories. Índole, Ojo de Cuervo, Estro, Kalina, Los Sin Pisto, La Chifurnia, Equizzero, and others I’m forgetting right now, have invested heavily in fiction. So, through these publications, we began to get to know each other, read each other, and establish a very enriching dialogue. Through this network, we compiled a series of stories that explore the phenomenon, but from different perspectives, from distinct characters who move through an oppressive environment and who are victims and/or perpetrators in this scenario. It is not an easy book. However, [editing Daños Colaterales] was a significant learning experience. For the editorial team, it meant lessons in project management, editing, layout, and publishing. We put it together as best as we could, figuring things out as we went along. We shared the copies among ourselves and our friends. We left a couple of copies at the CRAI (Center for Learning and Research) of the José Simeón Cañas Universidad Centroamericana (UCA). We also donated books to various social movements. Ultimately, the anthology was an exercise in both memory and empathy.
JP: In a time of increased censorship and repression, it’s a bold undertaking to spotlight Salvadoran stories that capture the people’s perspective. Who do you hope this book will reach? What do you hope readers will take away from this anthology?
RHP: Literature is an exercise in memory, sensibility, and imagination. If you were to browse through the country’s literary publications in recent years, you would find a rich dialogue delving into what we’ve experienced over the past twenty years. You would find a collective imagination that is configured through stories, moments, events—and I’m not just talking about short stories, but also poetry, drama, painting, etc. That is my particular vision. Perhaps, first and foremost, the anthology is aimed at those who enjoy reading good stories. Secondly, it’s aimed at those who have the desire to read a little about what we fiction writers are feeling right now, how we interpret the phenomenon [of the state of exception] in each of our stories, in these stories we witness or hear or suffer in some way. For some authors, it was like giving voice to the voiceless. Others imagined the country in the future. Still others told a story through the lens of the perpetrators, and that’s interesting. It was Chekhov who said [something like] “Speak of your village and you will speak of the world,” and we decided to take on this challenge. We knew the book had to exist, that it deserved to exist as a record for the future, and as authors, we hope the material reaches the readers it deserves.
JP: The literary tradition in El Salvador has long held a political and/or revolutionary stance. How do you situate the work of your generation in a larger trajectory of resistance?
RHP: What we write always has an ideological component. Ideas and feelings are always experienced through the lens of our belief systems, through our ways of seeing the world. In other words, there’s always an inherent, underlying politic [in what we write]. However, I think those of us born in the 1980s and 1990s experienced a ton of radical changes. We experienced the war in our childhood; those who had not yet been born learned about the war through family or community, or through Roque Dalton or José Rutilio Quezada. We all bear the mark of [war]. We have lived the phenomenon of migration, the rise and consolidation of gangs, earthquakes, hurricanes, pandemics, and now, current times are once again shaped by radical change. A roller coaster. So, I suppose all those experiences, memories, desires, and fears are reflected in some way in the short stories. I recommend reading the publications of the publishers I mentioned earlier. Also, take a look at online magazines like El Escarabajo, which constitute a valuable record of [political and revolutionary stances].
In mid-2023, I decided to record a series of conversations that I titled Bibliófilos SV (available on Spotify). There are independent publishing houses that are working hard to publish annually; there are some literary competitions, reading clubs, cultural centers, international poetry festivals, and so much that many of my friends are organizing to the best of their ability, which I find wonderful. That was the reason for recording [the podcast], which, deep down, was for me. I still need to talk to Salvadorans who were born or live abroad; I’m interested in learning about their aesthetic interventions. I regret not having read much of their work. It’s something I’m looking forward to.
JP: And what about your work? Where do you situate your work?
RHP: It’s a difficult question. I’m grateful to Carlos Clará for betting on my first publication, Soft Machine (Índole, 2021). There are some reviews of that book and of Los lugares que abandonadomos (Editorial Universitaria, 2024) on my fan page. Some are fantastical stories that speak from pain and traumas. Others are stories born out of social problems, such as gang violence or the chaos of mandatory confinement. It’s impossible for your immediate surroundings not to seep into your work, unless you’re writing something completely imagined, superficial, or artificial. La ciudad en los ríos [The City in the Rivers] is a manuscript in which I tried to merge these perspectives, and I liked the result. I don’t know if it’ll ever be published. I’m in no rush to do so.
JP: As a poet myself, I think often about the limitations of literature in effecting social change. However, I also believe fiercely in the power of literature and its ability to hold our sorrows and serve as a guiding light toward a better future. Can you tell me about a time you’ve seen literature make a positive impact in your communities?
RHP: I see it when someone enjoys a good read, when I see my students laughing or reading or asking questions about what they’re reading. The exercise of immersing yourself in a story, of engaging a poem, or reflecting in a theater like the Poma, or La Galera, or El Solar, after a performance, is unique. As José Emilio Pacheco said, “We don’t read others, we read ourselves in them.”
I agree with you when you say that literature has limitations in generating social change, but good literature leads you to reflect on human nature, to become interested in history, to question your reality. Alberto Másferrer wrote about this in his essay “Reading and Writing” (1968). I don’t want to get into educational policies and politics, but those themes are prevalent in [Másferrer’s essay]. Publishers do their part in developing readers, but it’s our authorities who should lead a truly national reading plan in El Salvador, opening more spaces for education and the arts.
JP: This interview is published as part of a long-standing column series that explores the relationship between literature and democracy. As we experience the global rise of fascism in El Salvador, the United States, and many other countries, what do you think the role of literature is in preserving and protecting democratic values?
RHP: [Juan Carlos] Onetti said that every writer’s first commitment is to their work. You have to be patient, willing to revise, write from a place of uncertainty, try to be honest and learn more about yourself with each book. You have to be clear about this. [Writing] requires being in tune with yourself and the world. If you have something good to say, well, then you start there. Currently, there is a lot of poetry written by women that explores themes such as tradition, motherhood, family, domestic violence, for example, or sexual diversity, or political violence through horror or science fiction. Don’t even get me started with playwriting: There are many texts being published that deserve to be read. This plurality of voices is necessary to begin a dialogue, and dialogue is a democratic practice. Literature can be a starting point to question what we do not want to see or what others do not want us to see. In this turbulent, violent time, the [written] word can become a place of vindication and a form of resistance in the face of pain and injustice.
translated from the Spanish by Janel Pineda
Janel Pineda is a poet, scholar, and the author of Lineage of Rain (Haymarket Books, 2021). She was born and raised in Los Angeles within a family of Salvadoran migrants, and her work explores intergenerational narratives, abolitionist visions, and the legacies of the US-funded Salvadoran Civil War, among other themes. Pineda has performed her poetry internationally in both English and Spanish. Her writing has been recognized with a Writing Freedom Fellowship, a California Arts Council Emerging Artist Award, and a NALAC NFA Artist Grant. Pineda is currently pursuing a PhD at UCLA, where her research focuses on global Salvadoran diasporas and the liberatory capacities of poetry for Central Americans. Her translation of Josué Andrés Moz’s “The Grave (Instructions to Avoid the Crime of Becoming an Inconvenient Dead Person)” appears in NER 46.2.
Ricardo Hernández Pereira is a teacher, writer, and editor. He is the author of the short story collections Soft Machine (Indolé, 2021) and Los lugares que abandonamos (Editorial Universitaria, 2024). Pereira directs Pantógrafo Editores, through which he has compiled and published the annual anthology series Cuentos indispensables [Indispensable stories], which brings together contemporary fiction by Salvadoran teachers. His short stories have been anthologized in Memorias de la casa: 12 narradores (Indolé Editores, 2021), Tierra breve: Antología centroamericana de minificción (Centroamericana, 2018) and Voces desede el encierro: Antologia de cuento latinoamericano (Editorial X, 2020). His accolades include the VI José María Méndez National Literature Prize, the XXIX Juegos Florales de Sensuntepeque, and honorable mention in the fourteenth Literary Contest Commemorating the Martyrs of the UCA. Pereira hosts the literary podcast Bibliófilos SV.
This is the twelfth installment in our “Literature & Democracy” series, which presents writers’ responses to the threats to democracy around the world.
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