Based in Miami, Colombian author Marcela Villegas completed graduate studies in Environmental Studies (San José State University) and in Creative Writing (Universidad Nacional de Colombia). She has conducted research in the areas of agriculture and sustainable development, has worked as an editor, author and translator with several international publishing houses, and is currently a contributor to Colombian magazines and newspapers. She is also the author of the Spanish-language short story collection, La conmoción de los encuentros (2021, Sílaba Editores).
Translator
Christel Kopp was born and raised in Ottawa and went on to study mathematics (University of Toronto) and musicology (Université de Montréal). After spending 30 years in Mexico, where she raised her family and studied and worked in translation, she returned to Canada to complete a master’s degree in Translation Studies (University of Ottawa). An experienced technical and literary translator and reviser, she works in English, French and Spanish.
Prensa
The Compassion of Strangers
Amalia is a forensic anthropologist, tasked with identifying victims of Colombia’s internal conflict. She is also the daughter of a woman with Alzheimer’s, whom she attempts to care for while negotiating several fraught relationships.
Based on extensive research, including the author’s own experience of caring for her mother, The Compassion of Strangers offers an original account of violence in Colombia and of the workings of memory. This gripping narrative, which poetically explores individual and collective suffering, makes all too apparent what remains when only remains are left.
[A]n intense prose poem whose characters bear witness to tragedies that dive deep into the human condition.
—Gustavo Colorado Grisales, La cola de rata
[A]n intense prose poem whose characters bear witness to tragedies that dive deep into the human condition.
—Gustavo Colorado Grisales, La cola de rata
[T]old with intelligence and humanity … I think sobriety is the great virtue of this story.
—Luis Fernando Afanador, Revista Semana