Roque Dalton
EL SALVADOR
(1935–1975) Roque Dalton was born in Quetzaltepeque, El Salvador. After a year at the University of Santiago, Chile, he attended the University of San Salvador, where he helped found the University Literary Circle in 1956, just before the Salvadoran military set fire to the building. He was arrested in 1959, 1960, and 1965 for his political involvement with the Communist party, escaping his last imprisonment when an earthquake shattered the outer wall of his cell. He lived in exile in Mexico, Cuba, and Prague, winning the Casa de las Américas poetry prize in 1969 for his book Tavern and Other Places. In 1973, he reentered El Salvador in disguise and joined the Revolutionary Army of the People (ERP) as a soldier-poet. During the next eighteen months he wrote Clandestine Poems. As a member of the ERP, he worked to establish bonds between the guerrillas and civil society, but was accused of collaborating with the CIA and assassinated by other members of the ERP in May 1975, four days before his fortieth birthday. He is the author of many books, including Stories and Poems of a Class Struggle and Miguel Marmol.
He was a member of the Committed Generation.
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