The colonel told it to shut up, and pushed himself from the table … The colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries home.

His daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the night … The moon swung bare on its black cord over the house. His wife carried a tray of coffee and sugar. (Recording of Carolyn Forché reading “The Colonel” plays) When she came back to the United States, Carolyn Forché published the poem that made her famous, “The Colonel,” about her visit to the home of one of these military leaders. Union workers, priests and nuns, farmers-anyone the military dictatorship saw as a danger.

Others were found by the side of the road, with their bellies cut open and limbs hacked off. This is the powerful story of a poet’s experience in a country on the verge of war, and a journey toward social conscience in a perilous time.Helena de Groot: When Carolyn Forché was 27, she went to El Salvador. Pursued by death squads and 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. As priests and farm-workers are murdered and protest marches attacked, he is determined to save his country, and Forché is swept up in his work and in the lives of his friends. These encounters are a part of his plan to educate her, but also to learn for himself just how close the country is to war.

Together they meet with high-ranking military officers, impoverished farm workers, and clergy desperately trying to assist the poor and keep the peace. Captivated for reasons she doesn’t fully understand, she accepts and becomes enmeshed in something beyond her comprehension. He has driven from El Salvador to invite Forché to visit and learn about his country. She’s heard rumors from her friend about who he might be: a lone wolf, a communist, a CIA operative, a sharpshooter, a revolutionary, a small coffee farmer, but according to her, no one seemed to know for certain. The relative of a friend, he is a charming polymath with a mind as seemingly disordered as it is brilliant. Written by one of the most gifted poets of her generation, this is the story of a woman’s radical act of empathy, and her fateful encounter with an intriguing man who changes the course of her life.Ĭarolyn Forché is twenty-seven when the mysterious stranger appears on her doorstep. What You Have Heard Is True is a devastating, lyrical, and visionary memoir about a young woman’s brave choice to engage with horror in order to help others.

What you have heard is true