To HISHAM MATAR

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