She meets Monseñor Oscar Romero, the renowned Archbishop of San Salvador. There, she witnesses horrifying images of violence and torture.
Leonel arranges for Carolyn to be shown a jail in Ahuachapán. She meets Leonel’s ex-wife, Margarita, who gifts her a dressier, more feminine outfit. Throughout her time in the country, Carolyn visits an understaffed and under-financed hospital, as well as Leonel’s coffee farm, where he is trying to start a cooperative. He especially focuses on the story of Richard Richardson, an American veteran allegedly killed by Chacón, the country’s violent and villainous Director of Immigration. Leonel meets her in El Salvador and begins to whisk her around the country, taking her to meetings with high-up government officials and to rural villages. Though her friends try to dissuade Carolyn, she eventually decides to go. Before leaving, he asks Carolyn to come to El Salvador. Over this time, Leonel tells Carolyn the history of his country and describes the rising tensions with the military there. Leonel and his two young daughters spend several days with Carolyn in her house. He has heard about her from Carolyn’s time in Spain translating the work of Claribel Alegría, the Central American poet at the time living in exile in Spain.
Leonel arrives at Carolyn’s house in southern California in 1977. The story is told in a variety of tenses and shows Forché reflecting on her friendship with Leonel Gómez Vides, an eccentric man fighting to prevent-and later to stop-the violence in his country. What You Have Heard is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance tells the story of American poet Carolyn Forché’s time in El Salvador between 19, as the Central American country tipped into civil war. What You Have Heard is True: A Memoir of Witness and Resistance. This guide is based off the following version of the book: Forché, Carolyn.
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