El olvido que seremos. (The Oblivion We Become)

Camilo Hoyos, Barcelona -- Críticas, 5/1/2007

It took the author nearly 20 years to get the courage to write this book about his father, Héctor Abad Gómez, a human rights leader in Medellín who was murdered by Colombian paramilitaries. The result is a cathartic and sentimental—but not clichéd—account of a man who fought against oppression, paramilitarism, and social inequality and whose voice was shut down by six bullets in the head. Abad Gómez was a professor at a medical school; once retired, he devoted his time to the human rights cause. His murder in 1987 brought about shock in the community; his family soon resigned themselves to their reality, Colombia’s reality. The narration itself—which focuses more on the father’s activisim and the father figure per sé than on the man himself—was a process for the author; Abad Faciolince goes beyond memory, opening up his own feelings and responses to his loss and depicts his father as the symbol of the ongoing fight against injustice, thus, illuminating and strengthening the Colombian memory. The author is a journalist for the Colombian magazine Semana. Recommended for libraries interested in Colombian and Latin American Literature.