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Maria Eugenia Vásquez Perdomo’s ethnographic exorcism of the ghosts from her clandestine past, and her struggle to uncover the early experiences that shaped her decision to take up arms, are riveting. Although relatively few others of her generation took the radical step of becoming revolutionaries, Vásquez Perdomo’s life is nonetheless broadly representative of the experiences, desires, and frustrations of a generation of Colombians (and Latin Americans more generally) who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s. I tested this assumption at a recent dinner with two Colombian friends, reading to them the author’s assertion that “In the 1970s, Marxism as a tool for analysis and research was the order of the day . . . we began in the first semester with Professor Vasco’s course on historical materialism, in which we read Lenin’s . . . ,” and before I could finish, my friends in unison supplied not only the title of Lenin’s work, but that of every other author on the list (among them Marx and Engels and Mao) and a few omitted ones they insisted had also been obligatory reading. Marxism never attained the kind of institutional legitimacy and omnipresence in U.S. university curriculums and intellectual circles that until recently reigned not only in Latin America but also throughout much of Europe. Nevertheless, the experiences at the heart of this book are likely to resonate with all those who once dreamed of participating in the collective cause of building a different and better world but awoke one day to find that years had passed and their once-youthful ideals had fizzled or been crushed by the grinding realities of an indifferent world.This winner of the Colombian National Prize for Testimonial Literature in 1998 is a notable example of an emerging genre within Latin American studies: autobiographical accounts of revolutionary experiences told from a gendered perspective. Like other testimonial writers, Vásquez Perdomo struggles with basic issues of identity and meaning. How did an average teenager fond of miniskirts, Ana y Jaime Mercedes Sosa, dancing, and theater end up in prison for rebellion and sedition? How did a happy-go-lucky student radical wielding a spray-paint gun, dodging tear gas, and distributing flyers for tumultuous student-led assemblies against the university administration evolve into a gun-toting commander of covert operations? At yet another level, this book is also an ethnography of modern Colombia, and its fractured and tragic political trajectory, over the last half century. This reader could not help but feel at times like she was trapped inside one of those dreams that begin innocently enough but escalate almost imperceptibly into a nightmare, in which easily averted tragedies relentlessly unfold. But the tone of this book is not solemn or maudlin, and it renders in realistic and compelling terms the appeal of abstract ideals and how these were transformed into concrete lived experience. Indeed, the author’s experience as an amateur actress appears to have endowed her with a fine and lively sense of timing that keeps the reader steadily engaged throughout the text. The account offers some particularly vivid and humane portraits of M-19 leaders such as Jaime Bateman, Alvaro Fayad, and Carlos Pizarro, making it evident why they became popular heroes even for Colombians who never endorsed armed rebellion. The author poignantly renders the gendered inequalities and contradictions that persisted even within “progressive” political movements and also illuminates how student movements and incipient guerrilla organizations both within Colombia and across Latin America (including the Southern Cone) influenced one another and even in certain instances spawned sporadic collaborations. The importance of the Cuban Revolution and of Cuban inspiration and support (particularly as a place of refuge during times of severe repression such as during the 1978 – 82 Turbay administration) is a theme that runs through the book.The brief but exceedingly balanced and thoughtful introduction to modern Colombian history by Arthur Schmidt provides an excellent contextual framework for the account. Translator Lorena Terando has also done a commendable job of rendering difficult colloquial Spanish into a lively and well-paced narrative that retains the author’s sense of humor and personal voice. This book will be a welcome addition to undergraduate courses on modern Latin America, seminars devoted to the study of life histories or testimonial literature, and, for different reasons, just as useful as a text in graduate courses on radicalism and revolution, gender and politics, and contemporary Latin American political history.
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