The armies (edition 2009)

A new Colombian author. You know how some books - say "Heart of Darkness," which I re-read recently - they're like haymakers, just huge bodyblows that knock you flat? This book is like a quick jab. Your head gets rocked back before you even realize you got punched. It's about a small mountain town in the pre-Uribe paramilitary days. It opens hazily, and it's hard to tell what's happening at first; it's like it opens in the immediate aftermath of a bomb blast, and for a while there's just smoke and noise, and it's only as things settle down that you realize who's hurt. Neat trick, and a very worthwhile book. ( )

"The Armies" follows the life of elderly former school teacher Ismael and his wife Otilia and their life in a small remote Colombia village. The village is constantly under threat from both rebels and paramilitary forces, who attack the town and military garrison frequently. However, life for the couple seems relatively peaceful, with Ismael continuing his habits of picking oranges and observing his sunbathing neighbor's wife.

However, this life is shattered once Otilia disappears during an attack on the village, and soon life in the town crumbles, as Ismael struggles to find out what exactly happened to his wife. ( )

Evelio Rosero (1958-) is an award winning author and journalist who was born in Bogotá, Colombia, where he currently resides. The Armies (Los ejércitos), his first novel to be translated into English, won the Tusquets International Novel Prize in 2006 and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2009.

Ismael is a 70 year old retired school teacher, who lives peacefully with his wife Otilia in a Colombian village. His days are spent picking oranges from the trees in his garden, while longingly admiring his neighbor as she sunbathes in the nude. Surrounding this peaceful village, however, are guerrillas who grow coca in the nearby hills, who occasionally threaten and kidnap individuals but do not have much of an impact on the town as a whole. Unfortunately for the villagers, the army decides to use the village as a front in the war against the guerrillas, and slowly but steadily the villagers are caught in the middle of these warring factions.

Ismael decides to take an early morning walk, and is detained by government soldiers. Otilia goes to look for him later that day, and Ismael goes to look for her after his release. However, there is fierce fighting on that day, and he cannot find her by day's end. His neighbor's husband and son are kidnapped, and a number of villagers are killed or injured. Over the next days, as the fighting intensifies and the villagers find themselves increasingly trapped, Ismael continues his search for Otilia, vowing to remain there until she returns to him.

No one in The Armies is entirely innocent or guilty: the captain of the army randomly shoots several civilians, accusing them of being guerrillas; the mayor and the local police abandon the villagers with little warning; journalists drop in for photo ops but are detached and uninterested in the villagers' plight; and the country's president denies the existence of the war, and claims that the deaths reported by the media were due to old age.

This was a beautifully written novel which captures the horrors of the Colombian civil war, without resorting to gruesome and repetitive depictions of violence. ( )

The wife of a retired teacher disappears during an attack on their home town by one of the rival factions in the country's civil strife. He stays, hoping for her return, whilst one by one his friends and neighbours are themselves kidnapped, killed or forced to flee. He cannot even bring himself to tell their daughter of his wife's disappearance. It is predictably harrowing, yet not entirely without hope. An unlikely page-turner, though don't expect a happy ending. ( )