"This book is proof that today's Latin American literature reaches far and digs deep. Alfredo Molano isn't a novelist or poet, but rather a sociologist who realizes that 'the way to understand wasn't to study people but to listen to them.' The testimonies that Molano collects are a point of departure for a work that knows how to relate, like few others can, Colombia's pain in a language that has more colors than the rainbow."--Eduardo Galeano, author of "Upside Down" and "Open Veins of Latin America"

"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's Colombia and should indeed inspire US readers to challenge the US policies that continue to kill, impoverish and displace the people of Colombia."--From the foreword by Aviva Chomsky

Here in their own words are the stories of the "desterrados," or "dispossessed"--the thousands of Colombians displaced by years of war and state-backed terrorism, funded in part through US aid to the Colombian government.

These gripping stories show the human face of those who suffer the effects of the US "Plan Colombia" and of a state that serves the interests of wealthy landlords instead of the poor.

Acclaimed journalist Alfredo Molano is a columnist for the newspaper "El Espectador" in Colombia. He is a visiting scholar at Stanford University. He is the author of "Loyal Soldiers in the Cocaine Kingdom: Tales of Drugs, Mules, and Gunmen."

Colombia is a land of natural beauty and rich cultural heritage, of rain forests and rivers, of peaceful rural farms and ranches where farmers and gauchos gather for work and leisure. But behind these images of bucolic serenity, the people of Colombia live through considerable hardships. Poverty is prevalent in many isolated parts of the country where state authority is largely absent, and seventy years of armed conflict between the Colombian army, right-wing paramilitary forces, and left-wing guerrilla groups, such as the FARC and the ELN, continue to leave lasting scars. The country's central role in the cocaine trade both provides for and threatens the livelihood of many Colombians. The culmination of almost twenty years spent travelling throughout and photographing Colombia, Colombia: On the Brink of Paradise features more than one hundred incredible photographs by Luca Zanetti. What the images collectively portray is a place that teeters between paradise and the abyss, a wildly colourful and chaotic backdrop to the stories of everyday people's lives. Arranged thematically in several sections, the book also includes an essay on the historic, political, and social context of the conflict by Colombian sociologist Alfredo Molano, who followed closely the peace negotiations of 2012–16 between the Colombian government and the FARC and who is a member of the truth commission established as part of the peace agreement signed between the rebels and the government; brief introductory texts by Medellín journalist Anamaria Bedoya Builes; and a postscript by Luca Zanetti.