The Dispossessed: Chronicles of the Desterrados of Colombia - Softcover

Molano, Alfredo; Chomsky, Aviva

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1931859175 ISBN 13: 9781931859172

Publisher: Haymarket Books, 2005

Synopsis

“This book is proof that today’s Latin American literature reaches far and digs deep. Alfredo Molano isn’t a novelist or poet, but rather a sociologist who realizes that ‘the way to understand wasn’t to study people but to listen to them.’ The testimonies that Molano collects are a point of departure for a work that knows how to relate, like few others can, Colombia’s pain in a language that has more colors than the rainbow.”—Eduardo Galeano, author of Upside Down and Open Veins of Latin America

“The people whose stories Molano tells are not social activists. They do not provide political or structural explanations of their lives; they do not tell stories of coming to consciousness. Yet, together, their stories add up to a powerful analysis of today’s Colombia and should indeed inspire US readers to challenge the US policies that continue to kill, impoverish and displace the people of Colombia.”—From the foreword by Aviva Chomsky

Here in their own words are the stories of the desterrados, or “dispossessed”—the thousands of Colombians displaced by years of war and state-backed terrorism, funded in part through US aid to the Colombian government.

These gripping stories show the human face of those who suffer the effects of the US “Plan Colombia” and of a state that serves the interests of wealthy landlords instead of the poor.

Acclaimed journalist Alfredo Molano is a columnist for the newspaper El Espectador in Colombia. He is a visiting scholar at Stanford University. He is the author of Loyal Soldiers in the Cocaine Kingdom: Tales of Drugs, Mules, and Gunmen.

About this title

About the Author:

Molano is a columnist for the newspaper El Espectador in Colombia. He is currently in exile in Spain, and is also a visiting scholar at Stanford University. Aviva Chomsky is Professor of History and Coordinator of Latin American Studies at Salem State College. She is co-editor of The Cuba Reader (Duke). Lance Selfa is an editor of and contributor to International Socialist Review. He edited The Struggle for Palestine (Haymarket, 2002). He lives in Chicago. Daniel Bland is a human rights researcher and filmmaker, based in Canada, who has written widely on human rights abuses in Colombia.

About this edition

• Publisher: Haymarket Books
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1931859175
• ISBN 13: 9781931859172
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 220