(Bogota, 1944) Writer, sociologist and journalist. He studied Sociology at the Universidad Nacional, receiving his degree in 1971, and studied at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris between 1975 and 1977. He has taught at a number of universities, has been a columnist for the weekly paper El Espectador and written for magazines such as Eco, Cromos, Alternativa, Semana and Economía colombiana. He has also directed series for television and won the Simón Bolívar Journalism Prize (1993), the Colcultura National Book Award (1992) and the Prize for National Excellence in Human Sciences (1990), awarded by the Academia de Ciencias Geográficas, for a life dedicated to research and the dissemination of essential aspects of contemporary Colombia. He has an honorary doctorate from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (2014) and won the CPB National Journalism Prize (2015). Some of his recent publications are: Del otro lado (2011), Otros rumbos (2012), Dignidad campesina, entre la realidad y la esperanza (2013) and A lomo de mula (2016).
Photo: courtesy of Aguilar