Listen and read

Step into an infinite world of stories

  • Listen and read as much as you want
  • Over 400 000+ titles
  • Bestsellers in 10+ Indian languages
  • Exclusive titles + Storytel Originals
  • Easy to cancel anytime
Subscribe now
Details page - Device banner - 894x1036

Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas

2 Ratings

3.5

Duration
8H 46min
Language
English
Format
Category

Biographies

A The Millions Most Anticipated Book of the Year

""Gripping and beautiful. With the artistry of a poet and the intensity of a revolutionary, Lovato untangles the tightly knit skein of love and terror that connects El Salvador and the United States."" —Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Natural Causes and Nickel and Dimed

An urgent, no-holds-barred tale of gang life, guerrilla warfare, intergenerational trauma, and interconnected violence between the United States and El Salvador, Roberto Lovato’s memoir excavates family history and reveals the intimate stories beneath headlines about gang violence and mass Central American migration, one of the most important, yet least-understood humanitarian crises of our time—and one in which the perspectives of Central Americans in the United States have been silenced and forgotten.

The child of Salvadoran immigrants, Roberto Lovato grew up in 1970s and 80s San Francisco as MS-13 and other notorious Salvadoran gangs were forming in California. In his teens, he lost friends to the escalating violence, and survived acts of brutality himself. He eventually traded the violence of the streets for human rights advocacy in wartime El Salvador where he joined the guerilla movement against the U.S.-backed, fascist military government responsible for some of the most barbaric massacres and crimes against humanity in recent history.

Roberto returned from war-torn El Salvador to find the United States on the verge of unprecedented crises of its own. There, he channeled his own pain into activism and journalism, focusing his attention on how trauma affects individual lives and societies, and began the difficult journey of confronting the roots of his own trauma. As a child, Roberto endured a tumultuous relationship with his father Ramón. Raised in extreme poverty in the countryside of El Salvador during one of the most violent periods of its history, Ramón learned to survive by straddling intersecting underworlds of family secrets, traumatic silences, and dealing in black-market goods and guns. The repression of the violence in his life took its toll, however. Ramón was plagued with silences and fits of anger that had a profound impact on his youngest son, and which Roberto attributes as a source of constant reckoning with the violence and rebellion in his own life.

In Unforgetting, Roberto interweaves his father’s complicated history and his own with first-hand reportage on gang life, state violence, and the heart of the immigration crisis in both El Salvador and the United States. In doing so he makes the political personal, revealing the cyclical ways violence operates in our homes and our societies, as well as the ways hope and tenderness can rise up out of the darkness if we are courageous enough to unforget.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

© 2020 HarperAudio (Audiobook): 9780062939036

Release date

Audiobook: 1 September 2020

Others also enjoyed ...

  1. Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body Roxane Gay
  2. The Anatomy of Fascism Robert O. Paxton
  3. It Would Be Night in Caracas Karina Sainz Borgo
  4. Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism Amanda Montell
  5. The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Ilan Pappe
  6. The Heretics: Adventures with the Enemies of Science Will Storr
  7. Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement Angela Y. Davis
  8. The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World Douglas Valentine
  9. A Brief History of Equality Thomas Piketty
  10. The Origins of Totalitarianism Hannah Arendt
  11. Permanent Record: A Memoir of a Reluctant Whistleblower Edward Snowden
  12. The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir Samantha Power
  13. Memorial Drive: A Daughter's Memoir Natasha Trethewey
  14. I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer Michelle McNamara
  15. Iran: A Modern History Abbas Amanat
  16. Life as a Unicorn: A Journey from Shame to Pride and Everything in Between Amrou Al-Kadhi
  17. Bad Feminist: Essays Roxane Gay
  18. I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying: Essays Bassey Ikpi
  19. South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation Imani Perry
  20. Antisocial: How Online Extremists Broke America Andrew Marantz
  21. The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir John Bolton
  22. Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture Roxane Gay
  23. Crying in H Mart: The Number One New York Times Bestseller Michelle Zauner
  24. Spies in the Family: An American Spymaster, His Russian Crown Jewel, and the Friendship That Helped End the Cold War Eva Dillon
  25. The Dragon's Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa Deborah Brautigam
  26. Shadow State: Murder, Mayhem, and Russia's Remaking of the West Luke Harding
  27. War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence Ronan Farrow