In 1980 El Salvador was plunged into a bloody civil war, and Luis Campos, a peasant farmer, found himself drawn into a deadly political maelstrom of guerrilla fighting for twelve years. In this collection of fascinating and revealing oral histories, Gorkin and Pineda portray the personal and social lives of Luis and his family, who for the past eighteen years have been working to rebuild their lives in their new community beneath the Guazapa volcano.
Luis, his mother, his wife, his in-laws, his children, and some neighbors recall in a simple and often eloquent manner their experiences of everyday life before, during, and after the civil war. Nina Bonafacia, Luis's mother, tells of the days before the war when two of her daughters were murdered and she fled with her family to a refugee camp. Julia, Luis's wife, recounts her life as a guerrillera during which, incidentally, she gave birth to the first two of her eight children. Joaquin, a neighbor and comrade-in-arms, discusses how he and others took control of the land of Comunidad Guazapa and began rebuilding in those turbulent days and months right after the war. Margarita and Francisco, the two oldest children, with candor and insight discuss the trajectory of their lives and that of the postwar generation. And at the center of all these stories stands Luis, the guerrillero, farmer, neighbor, husband, father--and raconteur par excellence.
In sum, the multiple voices in "From Beneath the Volcano" combine to form a rich tapestry displaying a story of war, family, and community and provide a never-before-seen view of both the past and present El Salvador.

This highly original book collects surprisingly candid stories as experienced by three Palestinian mothers and their daughters, stories that are inextricably interwoven with memories of the intifada and the wars of 1948 and 1967. Beautifully told and sensitively edited by Michael Gorkin and Rafiqa Othman, the linked stories in this collection bear witness to the everyday life of Palestinian women under Israeli occupation and the profound changes that have occurred in their political and personal lives, ultimately offering the reader a staggering view of womens changing roles in a Muslim society. A valuable contribution to the literature on women, the Arab world, and the Palestine-Israel conflict. . . . The complexity of the women's lives and stories and the ways in which they portray themselves in the book make this work of value to anthropologists, as well as to scholars in womens studies, oral history, Middle East studies, and sociology.Journal of Palestine Studies

The life histories and testimonies of nine Salvadoran women from different generations shape this intimate portrayal of contemporary El Salvador. The authors interviewed a grandmother, mother, and granddaughter from three Salvadoran families: La Familia Nunez, members of the upper class; La Familia Rivas, from El Salvador's growing middle class; and La Familia Garcia, from the "campo," the Salvadoran peasantry. The voices we hear convey a deep sense of the world of Salvadoran women and how life is lived in that Central American country today.
Each woman tells her own life story, and interspersed with recollections of childhood, marriage, and childrearing are revealing accounts of El Salvador's turbulent political past and present. Reflected in the stories are the vast changes in educational and occupational opportunities for women and the shifts in male-female relationships. Class differences are still a fundamental part of Salvadoran life, but changes are occurring in this area as well.
"From Grandmother to Granddaughter" is a vivid and authentic portrait of today's El Salvador that convincingly illustrates how individual lives can reflect the larger changes within a society.