Dancing in a Cemetery: A Novel about Colombia

By Varouj Pogharian

The novel interlaces real characters and gritty events with fictional ones to reveal Colombia's dark side, the brutality and complexity of its many internal conflicts, and the chronic high levels of violence and human rights abuses which date back to the country's independence from Spain two centuries ago. The most recent bout of fratricidal fighting started in 1964 pitching peasant and Marxist insurgencies, principally the FARC and the ELN, against the armed forces and their paramilitary proxies sponsored by large landowners, cattle ranchers, drug cartels, and corrupt politicians. Cold War warriors from the US State Department, the Pentagon and the CIA fomented sabotage and violence against groups they considered communist only to aggravate the situation. All sides have been responsible for a drama that has left 250,000 dead, uprooted more than six million peasants (a number higher than the displaced from the ongoing war in Syria), usurped millions of hectares of rural land, littered the countryside with anti-personnel mines, and produced thousands of victims of torture, kidnappings, extortion and sexual violence. Despite a long-running dirty war and billions of dollars in US military assistance which went in part toward funding the War on Drugs, the Colombian state has been unable to achieve a decisive military victory over the guerrillas. Marisa D?az Torres, tired of her mother's racism, prejudices and obsession to emulate the elite, leaves her middle class home in Bucaramanga to attend university in Bogota. After an emotionless marriage which led her to question her sexuality, she sets out across the hidden and neglected Colombia which she, like most of Colombia's city dwellers, did not know existed. She discovers a land of beauty, kindness, and wisdom, and of violence, criminality and rampant corruption where powerful geopolitical forces are at play. She sees first hand the despair of displaced members of indigenous and Afro communities and meets victims of prostitution, sexual violence, abusive government officials, soldiers and guerrillas who were invisible to her in her previous life. An Uruguayan storekeeper, a cynical school teacher long past retirement age, a blind healer among others provide her important life lessons and explain the actions of right-wing paramilitary death squads, leftist guerrillas, drug traffickers and the tensions with neighbouring Venezuela which are never far from the surface. The reader sees the inside of a brutal army survival boot camp and a clandestine guerrilla camp where female fighters are expected to put out to the men on the designated "Day of the Market". As a desensitized society inches toward a negotiated peace, Marisa, a survivor of myriad adversities, realizes that her fate has been sealed by sinister forces. The reader will develop a strong emotional attachment to Marisa and will not remain indifferent to the story's ending.Parallel to Marisa's journey is the story of the son of a respectable rural family with Arab origins who joins the police force to help fix the mess the country is in. He moves up the ranks to general. He faces off a corrupt detective who has eagerly and extensively participated in extrajudicial killings and to whom the end always justifies the means to resolve in an unexpected manner a matter of life and death regarding Marisa. The author's career in law-enforcement and criminal intelligence with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police spanned over thirty years. He spent many years in Latin America and the Caribbean working in the areas of international drug trafficking, money-laundering and national security.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1520102143
• ISBN13: 9781520102146
• Release Date: December 2016
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 760 Pages
• Weight: 2.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.9" x 6.0"