Miguel Mármol / Roque Dalton / 1987

Miguel Mármol / Roque Dalton / 1987

I began to read this book in grad school and was sidetracked for over a decade. I regret that sidetracking. I would have saved myself years of political and personal confusion had I taken the time to prioritize it. Mármol’s biography, as narrated and re-constructed by Roque Dalton and Mármol, captures the liveliest cantankerous voice of the 1930s Central American revolutionary movements in a biography that is at once harrowing, hilarious, and heartening. Whether describing the charms and joys of his impoverished childhood or the humiliations of his tortures, incarceration, or betrayals by his ex-wife and comrades, Mármol never fails to captivate. Included in this biography are miraculous stories and anecdotes of survival of a truly Christian magnitude. This book deserves a thrilling movie, a graphic novel, and more. 5/5