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

Cenizas de Izalco es la historia de un amor prohibido en el pequeno pueblo de Santa Ana, El Salvador. El telon de fondo de este amor entre un periodista norteamericano y una mujer de la burguesia salvadorena es el levantamiento campesino lidereado por Farabundo Marti que termino en la masacre de 1932. Esta novela forma parte del Boom latinoamericano y ha sido libro de texto de secundaria en El Salvador desde 1970."

A novel that blends politics, history and romance with unfailing gentleness, unforeseeable, explosive events determine the actions of the characters but never interrupt the work's lyrical structure. Carmen Rojas, the heroine, was a child when, in 1932, she witnessed the brutality of the El Salvadoran National Guard, who murdered 30,000 rioting peasants. The tragedy shapes her political consciousness, and, although she marries an American and lives in Washington, D.C., she cannot escape its memory. Thirty years later, she returns home to attend her mother's funeral and to care for her sickly...