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Juan Cárdenas and Daniel Ferreira in conversation with Margarita Valencia

Histories of the many Colombias

Cartagena 2023, Friday 27 January 2023

Two perspectives, one from fiction and another from the human and territorial geography of Colombia, of a country that is many countries in one and with a story that needs to be told again and again in order to better understand it. Juan Cárdenas (Colombia), the author of Ornamento and Elástico de sombra, among many other books, presents Peregrino transparente, a novel that recreates the Peregrinación de Alpha, a book published in Colombia in the 19th century as a kind of travelogue of the Comisión Corográfica scientific expedition through the different provinces of the country’s north and centre, which at times reads like an adventure novel, and which seeks to describe Colombia’s human geography, creating maps and locating resources. Daniel Ferreira (Colombia), is the author, among other books, of Viaje al interior de una gota de sangre and El año del sol negro, presents Recuerdos del río volador, the story of Alejandro Plata, a railway inspector at the time of the oil boom who disappears, and is searched for by his family and his lover. This gives rise to a story that deals with a historical moment, the many violences that devastate the territory, and the terrible fact of people who disappear. In conversation with Margarita Valencia.