And Then There Was Light

Former Washington State Poet Laureate Claudia Castro Luna’s And Then There Was Light is a dramatic, deftly told, and ultimately hopeful memoir, about how idyllic her El Salvadorean childhood was and how menacing it became.

Luna details the startling repercussions that resurface years later, demonstrating how the dormant trauma of political violence is retriggered by seemingly unrelated, but equally devastating, street violence—in the same United States that had helped fuel the war’s atrocities.