Colombia is the least understood of Latin American countries. Its human tragedy, which features terrifying levels of kidnapping, homicide and extortion, is generally ignored or exploited. In this urgent new work Forrest Hylton, who has extensive first-hand experience of living and working in Colombia, explores its history of 150 years of political conflict, characterized by radical-popular mobilization and reactionary repression. Evil Hour in Colombia shows how patterns of political conflict, from the mid-nineteenth century to today's guerilla narco-traffickers and paramilitaries, explain the wear currently destroying Colombian lives, property, communities and territory. In doing so, it traces how Colombia's "coffee capitalism" gave way to the cattle and cocaine republic of the 1980s, and how land, wealth and power have been steadily accumulated by the light-skinned top of the social pyramid through a brutal combination of terror, expropriation and economic depression.

The most up-to-date book on Colombia: from the mid-19th century to today's guerrilla narco-traffickers and paramilitaries.

In Evil Hour is the thrilling story about the smears, defamations, infidelities, and torrential rains that afflict a small Colombian town, and the sacrifice of a boy that brings torment and chaos to an end, from the masterful Gabriel García Márquez, author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera. One morning, slanderous posters start appearing all over the town, revealing family secrets and maligning individuals. Ghosts of the past reappear, along with old feuds and infidelities. Torrential rains then flood the town and chaos is everywhere. Neighbors suspect each other, yet no one knows who is responsible. Finally, a boy is made the scapegoat and tragedy ensues. In Evil Hour contains vivid characters who reflect the humor and pathos of everyday life. This brooding novel clearly points the way to the flowering of García Márquez’s genius in his later One Hundred Years of Solitude.

A firsthand account of Colombia's turmoil by a journalist who was held captive by rebel guerrillasIndependent journalist Garry Leech has spent the last eight years working in the most remote and dangerous regions of Colombia, uncovering the unofficial stories of people living in conflict zones. Unlike other Western journalists, most of whom rarely leave Bogotá, Leech learns the truth about conflicts and the U.S. war on drugs directly from the source: farmers, male and female guerrillas, union organizers, indigenous communities, and many others.Beyond Bogotá is built around the eleven hours that Leech was held captive by the FARC, Colombia's largest leftist guerrilla group, in August of 2006. Drawing on unprecedented access to soldiers, guerrillas, paramilitaries and peasants in conflict zones and cocaine-producing areas, Leech's documentary memoir is an epic tale of a journalist's search for meaning in the midst of violence and poverty. This compelling account provides fresh insights into U.S. foreign policy, the role of the media, and the plight of everyday Colombians caught in the middle of a brutal war."In this remarkable saga, Garry Leech conveys brilliantly and with vivid insight the magical qualities of this rich and tortured land, and the struggles and torment of its people." -Noam Chomsky"An extraordinary portrait of grace under pressure-not only of the author himself, but of ordinary Colombians fighting for social justice." -Forrest Hylton, author of Evil Hour in Colombia

For the first time, legendary DEA operatives Steve Murphy and Javier F. Peña tell the true story of how they helped put an end to one of the world’s most infamous narco-terrorists in Manhunters: How We Took Down Pablo Escobar—the subject of the hit Netflix series, Narcos. Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar’s brutal Medellín Cartel was responsible for trafficking tons of cocaine to North America and Europe in the 1980s and ’90s. The nation became a warzone as his sicarios mercilessly murdered thousands of people—competitors, police, and civilians—to ensure he remained Colombia’s reigning kingpin. With billions in personal income, Pablo Escobar bought off politicians and lawmen, and became a hero to poorer communities by building houses and sports centers. He was nearly untouchable despite the efforts of the Colombian National Police to bring him to justice. But Escobar was also one of America’s most wanted, and the Drug Enforcement Administration was determined to see him pay for his crimes. Agents Steve Murphy and Javier F. Peña were assigned to the Bloque de Búsqueda, the joint Colombian-U.S. taskforce created to end Escobar’s reign of terror. For eighteen months, between July 1992 and December 1993, Steve and Javier lived and worked beside Colombian authorities, finding themselves in the crosshairs of sicarios targeting them for the $300,000 bounty Escobar placed on each of their heads. Undeterred, they risked the dangers, relentlessly and ruthlessly separating the drug lord from his resources and allies, and tearing apart his empire, leaving him underground and on the run from enemies on both sides of the law. Manhunters presents Steve and Javier’s history in law enforcement from their rigorous physical training and their early DEA assignments in Miami and Austin to the Escobar mission in Medellin, Colombia—living far from home and serving as frontline soldiers in the never ending war on drugs that continues to devastate America.

In an age of military neoliberalism, social movements and center-Left coalition governments have advanced across South America, sparking hope for radical change in a period otherwise characterized by regressive imperial and anti-imperial politics. Nowhere do the limits and possibilities of popular advance stand out as they do in Bolivia, the most heavily indigenous country in the Americas. Revolutionary Horizons traces the rise to power of Evo Morales's new administration, whose announced goals are to end imperial domination and internal colonialism through nationalization of the country's oil and gas reserves, and to forge a new system of political representation. In doing so, Hylton and Thomson provide an excavation of Andean revolution, whose successive layers of historical sedimentation comprise the subsoil, loam, landscape, and vistas for current political struggles in Bolivia. Revolutionary Horizons offers a unique and timely window onto the challenges faced by Morales's government and by the South American continent alike.

* National Bestseller and winner of the 2014 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award * Hailed by Edmund White as "a brilliant new novel" on the cover of the New York Times Book Review * Lauded by Jonathan Franzen, E. L. Doctorow and many others From a global literary star comes a prize-winning tour de force – an intimate portrayal of the drug wars in Colombia. Juan Gabriel Vásquez has been hailed not only as one of South America’s greatest literary stars, but also as one of the most acclaimed writers of his generation. In this gorgeously wrought, award-winning novel, Vásquez confronts the history of his home country, Colombia. In the city of Bogotá, Antonio Yammara reads an article about a hippo that had escaped from a derelict zoo once owned by legendary Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. The article transports Antonio back to when the war between Escobar’s Medellín cartel and government forces played out violently in Colombia’s streets and in the skies above. Back then, Antonio witnessed a friend’s murder, an event that haunts him still. As he investigates, he discovers the many ways in which his own life and his friend’s family have been shaped by his country’s recent violent past. His journey leads him all the way back to the 1960s and a world on the brink of change: a time before narco-trafficking trapped a whole generation in a living nightmare. Vásquez is “one of the most original new voices of Latin American literature,” according to Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa, and The Sound of Things Falling is his most personal, most contemporary novel to date, a masterpiece that takes his writing—and will take his literary star—even higher.