Book Description

"Anna Maria Gasteazoro (1950-1993) was a Salvadoran opposition leader and renowned prisoner of conscience. In her memoirs, Tell Mother I'm in Paradise, she recounts her trajectory from a privileged Catholic upbringing in El Salvador, with stints at school abroad and early jobs, to her increasing commitment to political work after witnessing the violence and corpses in the streets of San Salvador early in the civil war, to clandestine organizing against the brutal military junta. Her inspiring and, at times, dramatic story culminates in three years as a political prisoner of conscience and then release and exile to Mexico. Readers get a sense of the upper-class milieu of well-connected parents and loving nannies and of Gasteazoro negotiating her education and freedom and exploring her talents in early years. She chronicles her growing rebellion against strictures of the Catholic Church and the conservative group Opus Dei, with which her mother was heavily involved. She was well educated and spoke perfect English and discovered a talent for organizing in administrative jobs abroad and at home. As the war progressed, she quickly became a valuable leader in the opposition movement as a member of the National Revolutionary Movement (MNR), a social democratic party, despite the machismo environment. She was often sent abroad as a representative. In two particularly exciting events, she served as a delegate to the Eleventh International Youth Festival in Havana in 1978 and when, with her life in danger, she donned a disguise to give a speech at a conference in Spain. As other MNR leaders were killed or disappeared, she rose to top leadership. Against the backdrop of kidnappings and disappearances of prominent members of the opposition and massive social oppression, Gasteazoro began to live a double life. As an operative in a faction of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), she organized safe houses for fellow activists and proved adept at creative content, handling whatever task was required, for example, writing for an underground radio station and producing what became an award-winning documentary film. In 1981, the notorious National Guard arrested and tortured her, and she was then sent to the women's prison at Illopango. There, she and other activists dedicated their days to organizing through the Committee of Salvadoran Political Prisoners (COPPES). Gasteazoro's love affairs, including with fellow operatives, are woven into the narrative. Accounts of the relationships help reveal her as extraordinary woman in extraordinary times who lived to the fullest in both body and spirit"--