Arianna de Sousa-García, Eduardo Otálora Marulanda and Saia Vergara Jaime in conversation with Santiago Ángel

On mothers, fathers and children

Cartagena 2026, Friday 30 January 2026

The letter from a mother to her son to explain the horrors of emigration, the narration of a baby who has lived only a year of life, and a personal history of growing up with a father who is linked to the guerrilla movement. These are all ways in which Arianna de Sousa-García (Venezuela), Eduardo Otálora Marulanda (Colombia) and Saia Vergara Jaime (Colombia) talk about family relationships in their novels. Atrás queda la tierra is a story of exile, of a mother trying to explain to her 9-year-old son the catastrophe of their nation, Venezuela, and the hostile life involved in migration. Quieto is the story of the brief existence of baby Santiago, in an intimate elegy in which he observes a family trying its best to survive: with silences, routines, contained arguments, and a rocker that never stops moving. La hija del guerrillero y la loca is an autofiction about a childhood disturbed by political exile and marked by a search for identity. They talk to Santiago Ángel.