Claribel Alegría was born May 12, 1924 in Esteli, Nicaragua. When Alegría was nine months old, the family fled the occupation of Nicaragua for El Salvador. Alegría grew up in Santa Ana, El Salvador, and attended a progressive school, Jose Ingenieros, which was named after the Argentinean philosopher. From the time she was nine months old until she was eighteen, Alegría and her family lived as exiles from their native Nicaragua.

When Alegría was only six years old, she began to create her own poems. Her mother carefully wrote down the poems that Alegría dictated. Then, when she was fourteen, Alegría read Rainer Maria Rilke's, Letters to a Young Poet. Rilke's letters, written in 1903, had a profound effect on Alegría's young life. In virtually every interview ever given, she has recounted how...