To HISHAM MATAR
Dear Hisham,
As a Colombian who twenty years ago had to leave my
land behind, it was a nice surprise to see your name in the list of guests to
the Hay Festival in my beloved city of Cartagena de Indias.
I have just finished my reading of your heartbreaking
“RETURN” –one of the books I’ve asked as a Christmas present, following the
Chimamanda Adichie’s recommendation in The Guardian.-
I would like very much to be there, in Cartagena, but...
Anyway, I am going to take this occasion as a good opportunity to ask you some
questions which were coming meanwhile my reading was going on…
For instance, in the list of the books your dear
father and other relatives were reading in jail I had missed the name of
Gabriel García Márquez, is there a reason for…? Maybe cultural, social,
ideological…? Perhaps I sound a little
Chauvinism! Sorry, it’s not my intention. It’s only the reader’s curiosity.
As a woman who is living another live in another
culture -as a Dutch citizen,- I know very well the feelings you’ve magnificently
described in your book. Some years ago one of the books who helped me to understand my own feelings and my pain was
the Milan Kundera’s novel “Ignorance” and reading you I was wondering if you
have read it too? Nostalgia as Ignorance! If your answer is No, I would like to
recommend it!
All of these feelings you described evocated in me things
I have learned in my own country and, more important, made me think again and again in all the
mothers in my land who are still looking for their missing children or husbands…
full of hope but without any answers!
In the name of your loved father, thank you for your ‘Return”.
A kind of revelation!
Carmen Socorro Ariza-Olarte