<DIV><p>&ldquo;This book is proof that today&rsquo;s Latin American literature reaches far and digs deep. Alfredo Molano isn&rsquo;t a novelist or poet, but rather a sociologist who realizes that &lsquo;the way to understand wasn&rsquo;t to study people but to listen to them.&rsquo; The testimonies that Molano collects are a point of departure for a work that knows how to relate, like few others can, Colombia&rsquo;s pain in a language that has more colors than the rainbow.&rdquo;&mdash;Eduardo Galeano, author of <i>Upside Down</i> and <i>Open Veins of Latin America</i></p><p>&ldquo;The people whose stories Molano tells are not social activists. They do not provide political or structural explanations of their lives; they do not tell stories of coming to consciousness. Yet, together, their stories add up to a powerful analysis of today&rsquo;s Colombia and should indeed inspire US readers to challenge the US policies that continue to kill, impoverish and displace the people of Colombia.&rdquo;&mdash;From the foreword by Aviva Chomsky</p><p>Here in their own words are the stories of the <i>desterrados</i>, or &ldquo;dispossessed&rdquo;&mdash;the thousands of Colombians displaced by years of war and state-backed terrorism, funded in part through US aid to the Colombian government.</p><p>These gripping stories show the human face of those who suffer the effects of the US &ldquo;Plan Colombia&rdquo; and of a state that serves the interests of wealthy landlords instead of the poor.</p><p>Acclaimed journalist <b>Alfredo Molano</b> is a columnist for the newspaper <i>El Espectador</i> in Colombia. He is a visiting scholar at Stanford University. He is the author of <i>Loyal Soldiers in the Cocaine Kingdom: Tales of Drugs, Mules, and Gunmen</i>.</p></DIV>