Wilfredo Pérez, a catechist and a good man, who was killed by the paramilitaries in May 1998.
In Bogotá, Gustavo Gaviria, whose conversations were so revealing, and Guillermo Angulo, for making me aware of the poetry of the Mexican Renato Leduc and the miracles of an old love of his and of the writer Manuel Mejía Vallejo, named Machuca. Dr. Eduardo Cuéllar Gnecco. Moisés Melo, director of Editorial Norma, for his comments. For their valuable texts on Barrancabermeja and Santander, Virginia Gutiérrez de Pineda and Jacques April-Gniset. Alejandro Santamaría for introducing me to Father Carlos Eduardo Correa. Dr. Ignacio Vergara, the analyst of the fictitious characters in this novel and the previous one. Marie Descourtieux, for the books and texts on prostitution she sent me from Paris, and the memorable Scottish poet Alastair Reid, who laughed with me as we created the conversation about snow that appears here from the mouths of the gringo Frank Brasco and Sayonara.
The Colombian Ministry of Culture, for giving me a grant that aided the writing of these pages.
about the author
Photograph by Nina Subin
LAURA RESTREPO is a bestselling author and political activist, whose novels include Leopard in the Sun and The Angel of Galilea, which was awarded Mexico’s Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz Prize and the Prix France Cultural Award. She has been a professor of literature at the National University of Colombia as well as publisher of the weekly magazine Semana. In 1984 she was a member of the peace commission that brought the Colombian government and guerrillas to the negotiating table. As she does with all of her novels, Restrepo did thorough research for The Dark Bride, transforming her investigations as a journalist into the foundation for a fictional creation. She lives in Bogotá, Colombia.
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footnotes
* Ladrón is used here both as a family name and, below, as it is more commonly used, to mean “thief.”