The poet Rita Valdivia, or “La Comandante Maya” as she is remembered by her revolutionary comrades, was born in Cochabamba, Bolivia, in 1946. A member of the Bolivian National Liberation Army (ELN), she was appointed leader of the underground movement in Cochabamba and died there in July 1969 at the age of twenty-three. Read more about her in Margaret Randall’s companion essay.