Written in two voices, "Ashes of Izalco" is a collaborative novel by Claribel Alegrfa and Darwin Flakoll, a love story set against the events of 1932 when thirty thousand Indians and peasants were massacred in Izalco, El Salvador. "Ashes of Izalco" brings together a Salvadoran woman and an American man who together struggle over issues of love, loyalty and socio-political injustices.

Claribel Alegria combines poetry, fiction, and historical narrative about her early childhood in Santa Ana, El Salvador.

An elaborate, elegant homage to the great Czech storyteller Bohumil Hrabal (author of Closely Watched Trains), The Book of Hrabal is also a farewell to the years of communism in Eastern Europe and a glowing paean to the mixed blessings of domestic life.

Halting Steps represents the most complete single-volume retrospective in English of Claribel Alegr a's seven-decade career. The volume collects all of Alegr a's poems from her fourteen previously published books and debuts several new poems under the title "Otherness." Alegr a was born in Nicaragua during the United States occupation of that country. Alegr a's family opposed the occupation and moved to El Salvador, where she grew up. Her poetry is not only lyrical and introspective but also po-litically engaged. Her verse has always spoken forcefully, specifically, and fearlessly to matters of social justice in her region. She strikes a universal theme, however, in giving a voice to individuals of all classes in their struggle against oppression, but especially women who must contend with a system in which men hold the power and women are ex-cluded. Alegr a demonstrates her remarkable range with deeply personal poems, perhaps most notably in the poem cycle "Sorrow," as she moves steadily through the waves of grief she experiences after her husband's death. In Halting Steps, both longtime admirers and those new to her work can appreciate the sustained creative power of Claribel Alegr a's poems.

This vivid exposé of corruption and political tyranny in the Dominican Republic rang so true to the reality that the President of that country went on television to denounce the book. Sención's novel follows the lives of three seminary students who suffer from church-state oppression. The book also gives a chilling portrait of Dr. Ramos, a sinister autocrat, who manages to survive six terms as president of his country through manipulation and tyranny.

Death of Somoza reveals the inside story of the assassination of Anastasio Somoza Debayle in Asuncion, Paraguay in 1980. Alegria and Flakoll, on the recommendation of Julio Cortazar, met "Ramon," a leader in the Argentinian Revolutionary Workers' Party (PRT) and with his help were able to interview all the survivors of the commando team that carried out the "bringing to justice" of Somoza. Alegria and Flakoll rewove these testimonies into a narrative that reads like a thriller and gives a vivid picture of the political and social climate of the time. Enlivened by its colorful cast of characters, Death of Somoza is the definitive account of how Anastasio Somoza Debayle was brought to justice. This story is not an apology for terrorism, but rather the chronicle of a tyrannicide.