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Saturday, December 29, 2007

Francisco De Nada

A lawyer who secretly published anti-nationalist chapbooks (which inspired an unsuccessful coup against his country's puppet regime) DeNada had always been a target of suspicion for his sympathies; military police agents traced his tracts to a printer and soon afterwards, members of DeNada's family mysteriously vanished. The young revolutionary was arrested and imprisoned for the next 7 years within a secret island labor camp, during which time he composed his epic anti-imperialist manifesto/poem, "El Jaguar"; he was denied writing instruments during the incarceration and memorized the entire 5,000 verse work while toiling in the jungle. Rumors circulated that he'd been executed until a band of comrades infiltrated the island security and aided DeNada in a dramatic escape to the mainland. He spent several years hiding with rebels in the forests of Mexico and small Central American countries until a group of North American editors and publishers helped him to secure amnesty in the US, where he lives and continues writing today.