Wake the Others: A Biography of My Motherland

Half-memoir, half-biography, Wake The Others wrestles with the legacy of the Salvadoran Civil War. Blending lyric and narrative, Palomo traces his mother’s childhood, war experiences, family separation, migration, and its aftermath. Political without sacrificing craft, confessional without navel-gazing, this debut collection of poetry guides readers through the quagmire of family secrets to a place where healing is possible.

'Willy Palomo’s outstanding debut takes a scalpel to the heart of biography as a genre, cuts through to the arteries of inherited nostalgia for a motherland, and opens the capillaries of a mama, abuela, and bisabuela’s traumas. This book is a gut wrenching family narrative of the history of violence in El Salvador and a family’s journey north in hope of stability and the possibility of joy. Palomo’s poems are an important and unique addition to the growing voice of Central American writers in the United States.”

—Natalie Scenters-Zapico, author of The Verging Cities and Lima :: Limón