Looking for Roque Dalton: Jim Iffland
Roque Dalton? The son of a wealthy American businessman 
and a Salvadoran woman of modest social background, educated at an exclusive Jesuit-run school; one of the greatest poets of 20th-century Latin America; political activist jailed on several occasions and murdered in May 1975 by members of a rival faction of the revolutionary organization to which he belonged. Despite persistent efforts by his family, his remains have never been recovered.
James Iffland spent a recent sabbatical doing research for a book on Dalton’s life and work. As Central American Visiting Scholar at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University and Senior Research Fellow at the Boston University Humanities Foundation, Iffland gathered many materials for his book during visits to El Salvador and Cuba during the spring of 2006. Particularly important was the access he gained to archives held by Dalton’s two surviving sons in San Salvador and to materials housed at the Casa de las Américas in La Habana. In both El Salvador and Cuba, Iffland also conducted interviews with Dalton’s friends, colleagues, and family members. Although Iffland is very happy with the results of his research, he notes, somewhat ruefully, that it will now take him somewhat longer to write his book: “That’s one of the paradoxes of being able to do research the right way. It leads you to material that then needs to be analyzed closely and integrated into your overall plan. That takes time. In fact, some discoveries may even force you to change key aspects of your basic argument…”