Historia oficial del amor

Beginning with a night in 1989 when the family came close to being killed, the narrator tells his family's story in reverse, back through a crime in 1976, a scandal in 1969 and a duel in 1935. His father, a physicist, has a gift for foreseeing what is coming; his mother, a lawyer, shields her family from the pettiness of political life. But ghosts crowd the family's past: an uncle, Romero Buj, killed by zealots of the communist cause, and a grandfather, Romero Aguirre, a Liberal leader of note whose glory gave way to decline. Climbing down the family tree, from the Bogotazo and the National Front to the siege of the Palace of Justice, parents and children come through Colombia's history without giving in or being bought; the result is at times tragic, at times comic, and at heart about love.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

540 pages in the original

Genres

Family, Historical, Politics (assigned by AI)

Set in

Colombia, 1935–1989

First published

2016 by Alfaguara

Author's age

41 when first published

ISBN

9789588948195 (original)