Editorial Unimagdalena

Description in English: While I was still a teenager, I tried my hand at writing, and Erasmo, my paisa uncle, insisted that I opt for less complicated topics than the military intrigues that the recent reading of The Autumn of the Patriarch had left me pondering. 'Write about what you know,' he insisted, listening at the table to my endless anecdotes from my grandparents' house in San Roque. But it was one thing to speak about it and quite another to write it. One night, a story that my brother Julio told me about his childhood came to mind, and I transcribed it almost verbatim on the typewriter. This time, Erasmus nodded in approval and wrote to me on that sheet of paper that I still have: 'You have found the rhythm, little boy.' However, the magic formula was not so obvious. Without adequate discipline, and to Erasmus's disappointment, I sporadically abandoned my dream of writing literature, producing one story or another over the course of thirty years. On one occasion, I wanted to participate in a competition, and the compilation of my works resulted in an unexpected anthology of loosely connected family stories, which hinted at what Erasmus had envisioned. I put it together with photos from the characters' album INSERT INTO a PDF and titled it 'Family History.' I am pleased that Erasmus knew of it and read much of it before he died. This collection of loosely connected stories, along with others from my most recent reunion with the land of my grandparents, comprise these tales that, without much sociological pretension, represent the particular tone and almost forgotten accent of my Momposina Depression.