Cartago
DANIEL CRISTANCHO

Summary
The narrator of this story can’t recall the death of his father that happened when he was only a year and a half. He didn’t see the extermination of thousands of followers and activists of the Unión Patriótica during the 80’s and 90’s either. One day, however, his thesis director reveals something that forces him to face the ghosts from a past that is – at the same time- personal and collective. He gives him details about his father´s murder that obsess him and take them to the hamletian dilemma between representation and revenge (or both). When the narrator finds out his father’s assassin is alive and there are reliable clues about his location, the doubt becomes more real than ever. The route he follows, from Bogotá to Madrid, is a double search: his own consolation and to have the voice of a generation that didn’t have the direct experience of those facts, but is still living the consequences by themselves and has to decide among a new attempt of peace or the blind commitment to violence.

Data sheet
Category: Novel
ISBN: 978-958-52509-6-3
Publication date: 30/09/2021
Extent: 296
Format: 13 x 20 cm

Author´s biography

Daniel Cristancho (Bogotá, 1983). Studied Journalism in Bogotá (Colombia). Participated in writing programs in Universidad de los Andes and Escuela Contemporánea de Humanidades in Madrid. Has worked as a reader for different Spanish publishing houses. In 2006, his short story “La muerte del endriago” won first place in the National short story Award from Universidad Central. Cartago is his first novel.