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November 21, 2019 鈥� professor and renowned poet was a National Book Award finalist for a memoir detailing her experiences in El Salvador between 1978 and 1980, including narrow escapes from American-trained death squads. 

(Penguin Random House, 2019) was listed as a finalist for the . The book details how a meeting with a stranger during her time in South America kicked off her long career as a human rights activist.

During her time in El Salvador, she and the stranger meet military officials, impoverished farm workers and clergy members, allowing Forch茅 to immerse herself in the country鈥檚 culture on the brink of war, and to understand the need for social activism, a lesson she has carried with her throughout her impressive career.

鈥淭he National Book Awards鈥� nomination of our colleague Carolyn Forch茅 for her haunting memoir, What You Have Heard is True, recognizes not only the unique achievement of that book, but also Professor Forch茅鈥檚 larger contribution as a poet, activist, and teacher to our country鈥檚 struggle to understand the impact of our policies and actions on the world around us,鈥� says English Department Chair Ricardo Ortiz. 鈥淗er experiences witnessing oppression and violence shaped Forch茅鈥檚 own poetic work and grounded her concept of a poetry of witness; now, her memoir, in lyrical, clear-eyed prose, not only sheds new light on what she herself risked in the process but also gives readers a first-hand account of the terrible suffering that has plagued one of our nearest neighbors for so many decades.鈥�

Forch茅, also an editor and translator, is the author of four books of poetry, including Gathering the Tribes, which won the Yale Younger Poets Award; The Country Between Us, chosen as the Lamont Selection of the Academy of American Poets; The Angel of History, which garnered the Los Angeles Times Book Award; and Blue Hour, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. 

A Poetic Legacy

In addition to these recognitions, she received the Edita and Ira Morris Hiroshima Foundation Award for Peace and Culture in Stockholm in 1998 for her work on behalf of human rights and the preservation of memory and culture. She also serves as the executive vice president of Cities of Refuge in North America.

Her fellowships include three from the National Endowment for the Arts, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lannan Foundation Fellowship, a Robert Creeley Award and the Academy of American Poets Fellowship.

Forch茅, a University Professor at Georgetown, has been called one of the most gifted writers of her generation and continues to build her legacy. Her newest poetry collection, In the Lateness of the World will be released in 2020 through Penguin Press.

Georgetown Represents

Alumnus Ilya Kaminsky (C鈥�01) was also a finalist in the 2019 National Book Awards for Poetry for his book Deaf Republic (Graywolf Press, 2019), in which the Odessa-born poet imagines a protest where a gunshot deafens those involved. 

Kaminsky, who is himself deaf because of a doctor鈥檚 misdiagnosis while he was a boy in the Soviet Union, was an English major at Georgetown. He is the recipient of a Whiting Award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and was also named a finalist for the Neustadt International Prize for Literature.