Review by Booklist Review
From his trying upbringing in rural El Salvador to his arrival on the literary scene in San Francisco in the 1980s, Argueta alternates between prose and poetry to create this genre-blending, bilingual memoir of his long journey north in flight from guerrilla violence. In short chapters, Argueta narrates life at home with his family, interrupted by the onslaught of civil war, and his subsequent escape from Central America. Argueta's poems are interspersed between these chapters, the best of them hovering, koanlike, and momentary. Here's Banana Tree in its entirety: An excited smile / hanging from the sky. Pepeto Tree opens: It is a small / green train / inside each car / there is a cloud. The brief poems echo the micrograms of Ecuadorian poet Jorge Carrera Andrade, while some longer poems bear formal resemblance to Neruda's odes, but Argueta's self-taught style is most similar to Mexican American writer Lalo Delgado or Jimmy Santiago Baca. A prolific children's-book author, Argueta explores decidedly more adult themes here.--Báez, Diego Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
