On July 19, 1979 the Nicaraguan people, under the banner of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, overthrew the 40-year-long Somoza family tyranny. Amongst those playing major roles in this popular revolution were many of the nation's leading poets and writers. Today, these men and women are focusing their creativity on the tasks of constructing a new nation and a new Nicaraguan culture. Through these interviews with 14 of Nicaragua's most important writers/revolutionaries we come to learn that Nicaragua's revolution, like its poetry, is an expression of great love, imagination and liberation.

Margaret Randall is an American author, poet, and photographer. Born in New York City in 1936, she lived for many years in Spain, Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua, and spent time in North Vietnam during the last months of the U.S. war in that country. She has written extensively on her experiences abroad and back in the United States. Randall taught at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, the University of New Mexico, Macalester College, and the University of Delaware. She currently lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with her wife. 

"This is a book that encourages and empowers those of us who are poets, those of us who write—and those of us who work to change society to fit the hopes and dreams of the common people." —Alice Walker

"This new collection of twelve interviews with Nicaraguan writers is a fascinating testament to basic human possibilities despite the harshly political determinations we have forced upon them. Once again it is Margaret Randall's unique power as a listener that can make a bridge to this complex place we must finally recognize as our common world." —Robert Creeley

"The wonder of some of these interviews—I'm thinking of Giocanda Belli and Vidaluz Meneses particularly—the truthfulness as they tell their lives as women and literary workers in a revolutionary time... the happiness, the toll, the sacrifice that's part of the process. And most interesting to an American woman and writer—the pride of being heard, your next poem waited for—your trade "poet" respected and emulated by the young." —Grace Paley