Books and Magazines

La Rebúsqueda. Historias de plantas y resiliencia en Chalatenango (MUPI 2024)

Edited by Alain Carretero, Adriana Alas López, Rosa Lilian López, and Carlos Alberto Elías Ortiz

This community book documents traditional knowledge about the relationship of the repopulated communities of Chalatenango with plants and animals both during the civil war (1980-1992) and today. It presents short stories, recipes for health care, information about the use of plants and animals in the history of Chalatenango communities, and botanical classification of the plants discussed. English translation forthcoming, 2025.

Chalatenango luz y sombra: fotografías de Ralph Sprenkels y memorias de las comunidades repobladas (MUPI 2024)

Edited by Adriana Alas López, Lidice Michelle Melara Minero, and Irina Carlota “Lotti” Silber

Chalatenango luz y sombra was written with survivors from the repopulated communities of Chalatenango, the new generations of young professionals committed to the memories of the region, Salvadorans in the diaspora, and people allied to the communities. The book is based on photographs taken by Ralph Sprenkels between 1992 and 1995. The result is a book with 73 unpublished photographs by Ralph Sprenkels and 13 chapters that reflect on different processes, events, and people during the war and the current reality of the repopulated communities of Chalatenango 30 years after the photographs were taken. English translation forthcoming, 2025.

Canciones sobre memoria histórica: Las Vueltas (2024)

Edited by Emily Abrams Ansari, María Dina Alas, Heidi Calderón, Joel Martínez-Lorenzana, Manuel Menjívar, Teresa de Jesús Menjívar, and Román Torres

This collaborative songbook was developed with community members through historical memory workshops, field recordings, testimonies, and artistic interpretations of lyrics. It includes songs that community members deemed most important to the memory of the armed conflict, repopulations, and the peace process.

Informe de proyecto: cooperación técnica en la confección de placas cerámicas para el proyecto de diseño y construcción del Memorial de la Masacre del río Sumpul, Chalatenango (University of El Salvador, 2022)

By Lourdes Calero

This art book reflects on the research-creation process used by Calero and her collaborators (survivors, students, scholars, and artists) to make the memorial ceramic plaques with the names of the victims of the Sumpul River Massacre from 2019 to 2022. It traces the work from its inception in community-based research workshops to artistic creation to installation at the memorial site. English translation forthcoming, 2025.

Salvadoran Photovoice: Surviving Memory and Imagined Futures in the Postwar Context: Vol 1 – Picturing Our Realities (2024)

Edited by Morgan Poteet and Juan Carlos Jiménez

This inaugural magazine compilation of Photovoice stories by Salvadoran Canadians explores the themes of “self and community” and “intergenerational dialogues.” They were produced as part of a research project entitled “Where Are They Now,” which explored the experiences of the Canadian-born children of Salvadoran immigrants in Toronto, Canada.

Experiencias y memorias de Arcatao: Vol 1 (MUPI 2024)

Edited by Adriana Alas López, Marisol Zarceño, Felipe Quintanilla, and Comité de Memoria Histórica Sobreviviente de Arcatao

This community book presents 204 stories about people who were killed or died because of the armed conflict in El Salvador (1970-1992). The stories have been curated from 82 interviews conducted with the victims’ relatives in the Arcatao district, Chalatenango, El Salvador. This book aims to honor the victims in Arcatao, expand our knowledge of the regional history of Arcatao, and call for non-repetition of political violence. English translation forthcoming, 2025.

Trasmallo 12: Memorias chalatecas del exilio (MUPI 2024)

This special issue of Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen’s [Museum of the Word and Image] Trasmallo magazine focuses on embroidery workshops led by Teresa Cruz in 2023-2024 under the auspices of the Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador research initiative. It explores the role of art in memory of refugee experiences during the war, community healing, and intergenerational education.

Historias de mujeres escritas por y para mujeres, vol. 1, “Mujeres y autoestima”

In this newsletter, women tell the story of Sofia, a popular teacher who speaks of her challenges during the war and post-war period to obtain her high school and university diploma. In addition, they reflect on how they understand the concept of self-esteem as something individual and collective at the same time, since it is complemented and strengthened in the community organization of women, family, and church, as well as within other organized groups.

Memoria Viva: Photographs and Testimonies About Life in La Virtud and Mesa Grande Refugee Camps, 1980-1992 (MUPI 2020)

This pilot community book was created with community collaborators from Suchitoto from 2017 to 2019. Based on historical memory workshops in January 2017 and a community curation process in October 2017, the text integrates photographs and testimonies that speak to the collective experience of Salvadoran refugees from Chalatenango and Cabañas. This pilot project was supported in part by a Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada Insight Development Grant, Montana State University, and Western University. The idea for the pilot project was jointly developed by Dr. Amanda Grzyb (Western University), Rosa Rivera Rivera (Arcatao’s Historical Memory Committee), and Dr. Molly Todd (Montana State University) in Arcatao, El Salvador, in November 2015. This book has also been published in Spanish (2020). This book has also been published in Spanish (2020).

Historias de mujeres escritas por y para mujeres, vol. 2, “Mujeres y agua”

In this newsletter, made collaboratively by Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador Women’s Committee, the participants tell the story of Vilma, a young woman from Arcatao who shares her experience of accessing drinking water. She raises the importance of community organization to achieve access to potable water with infrastructure projects like those she learned about in post-war El Salvador. The newsletter ends by calling for the fair and equal distribution of drinking water, emphasizing the need for water in homes, hospitals, and public health clinics.

Works in Progress

Río Sumpul Massacre Memorial: Trails and Voices (manuscript under peer review)

Edited by Harold Fallon, Evelia Macal, Lourdes Calero, and Amanda Grzyb

This volume traces the collaborative architectural design process for the Sumpul River Massacre Memorial, which will be completed in May 2025. In addition to the detailed conceptual and executional designs, the book includes the reflections of survivors, architects, artists, scholars, and community leaders who participated in the project from 2017 to 2024.

Canciones de Felipe Tobar (in progress)

Edited by Felipe Tobar, Sandra Alas, Emily Abrams Ansari, Yarubi Díaz Colmenares, María Laura Flores Barba, Amanda Grzyb, and Joel Martínez-Lorenzana

This songbook documents the song lyrics of prolific postwar songwriter, community leader, and massacre survivor, Felipe Tobar. It includes commentary by Tobar, as well as testimonies from community members about the historical events depicted in the songs. The book will be available in 2025. 

Memorias de Nueva Trinidad: Vol 2 (in progress)

Edited by Adriana Alas López, Marisol Zarceño, Teófilo Córdova, and Julio Rivera


Following Experiencias y memorias de Arcatao: Vol 1 (2024), this is the second volume in Surviving Memory’s book series about names of the war dead and those who remember them.  Co-edited with Teófilo Córdova and Julio Rivera, residents of Nueva Trinidad and collaborators of the Surviving Memory project in El Salvador, Memories from Nueva Trinidad documents stories of people who were killed or died due to the armed conflict in the urban area of Nueva Trinidad and its hamlets. The book honors the victims and acknowledges the violence perpetrated by the Salvadoran Army and the guerrilla factions against the local population. The book will be published in 2025.

Rostros de la memoria (in progress)

Edited by Casa Museo Jon Cortina, Adriana Alas López, and Lidice Michelle Melara Minero

This book is composed of photographic portraits of older adults from the community of Guarjila and survivors of the armed conflict. Documentary photographer and Surviving Memory collaborator, Shawn Robertson, took the photographs in collaboration with Casa Museo Jon Cortina and Adriana Alas. This book is currently in its fieldwork phase, but it aims to tell a collective story of love and resistance from the perspective of the grandmothers and grandfathers of Guarjila. These strong feelings for family and community motivated the older generation to move forward during the armed conflict and, later, in contemporary contexts of impunity and neoliberal violence. The book will be published in 2026.

Del pueblo para el pueblo: una historia de la comunidad de El Higueral (in progress)

Edited by Adriana Alas López, Amanda Grzyb, and El Higueral Research Committee

This book will present the recent history of the El Higueral community, specifically the years before, during, and after the war. The book is built from several private collections of photographs that families in the community keep. These are photographs, particularly from the beginning of the post-war period, when many more people from international solidarity photographed the life of the communities during the transition from war to peace. A copy of the photographs was used to carry out a community curation exercise in which representatives of the community - war survivors and young people - selected photographs and wrote or narrated personal, family, or community stories that contextualized the photographs and allowed them to tell the story of their community. The book will be available in 2025.

Narrativas de la guerra: memoria, justicia social y juventud en Chalatenango (in progress)

Edited by Beatriz Juárez, Jessica Larios, and the Las Vueltas Community

By exploring the potential of drawing, images, and maps to tell stories that connect past, present, and future, the “Graphic Narratives of the War: Memory, Social Justice and Comics in Chalatenango” project aims to create a series of gendered graphic narratives about the wartime in Chalatenango as pedagogical tools to strengthen community members’ connection with their past, imagine their futures, and boost intergenerational dialogues. The images and graphic narratives will also be incorporated into the Las Vueltas Museum of Historical Memory. The book will be published in 2025.

Salvadoran Displacement (in progress)

Edited by Glenda Mejía and Tania Cañas

This project will develop a bilingual illustrative narrative that draws from interviews with 10 Salvadorans across Australia (Boorloo/Perth, Narrm/Melbourne, Eora/Sydney, Meanjin/Brisbane). The publication will raise awareness of the experiences of Salvadorans in Australia. This project is led by Dr. Glenda Mejía (RMIT University, Melbourne) and Tania Cañas (Western University) and funded by Creative Australia.

Una historia de Las Vueltas (in progress)

Edited by Beatriz Juárez, Heidi Calderón, and the Las Vueltas community


Based on workshops in 2023-2024 and following a collaborative and participatory methodology, the “Community Book” project aims to revitalize the local history of Las Vueltas community in Chalatenango from the voices and perspectives of their members to amplify, document, preserve, and disseminate diverse local historical memories, cultural practices, and collective actions that have been silenced by official historical narratives. The book will be published in 2026.