It is possible to trace how he identified himself with his paternal lineage by his gradually erasing the name of his mother in exchange for the one of his father: Roque García, Roque D. García, Roque Dalton García, and, finally, Roque Dalton.
Thanks to the financial support of his father, he attended the prestigious Externado de San José, a private Jesuit secondary and preparatory school. His poetry and prose capture some of this early experience; with a tender irony he re-creates his initiation to poetry by Father Alfonso de María Landarech, S.J., in section 9 of his collection "Los Hongos" (The Mushrooms), published in Poesía (Poetry, 1980). In his posthumous novel, Pobrecito poeta que era yo . . . (Poor Little Poet that I Was . . . , 1976), he confers an autonomous voice and character on his adolescent former life and narrates it through the voice of Roberto. His high school diploma was issued in 1953 under the name of Roque D. García.
After his graduation, again thanks to the financial support of his father, he traveled to Chile via Panama. His plans to attend a Catholic institution of higher education suddenly changed, and he registered at the National University.
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