Visions of the Colombian 20th Century - Through its dead protagonists

Few Colombians like former president Alfonso López Michelsen, at the peak of his very fruitful ninety years, allow us to configure with the proverbial vision that characterizes him, a synthesis of the Colombian 20th century, a testimony of that era, which the author does not consider a complete chronicle but just a window to peer into it. Throughout a series of profiles written at the time about some of the protagonists who have already disappeared from this intense period of national life, the former president allows us to contextualize a future inexorably linked to the personalities he describes and share the personal memories they have. . It begins with the figure of his father Alfonso López Pumarejo, followed by others such as Enrique Olaya Herrera, Eduardo Santos, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, Alberto Lleras Camargo, Carlos Lleras Restrepo Laureano Gómez, until the recent evocations of Ramón de Zubiría, Rodrigo Lloreda, Consuelo Araújo , and Juan Luis Londoño, notes that are intertwined to integrate a story that may not be official or exhaustive, but is closer and more human.

These chronicles, the author tells us, only reflect the psychological impact that these characters had on him. In no case is his judgment critical, because as he confesses in his presentation, he prefers to think that "I have the satisfaction of having recognized in life, to the majority of my biographies, what others only recognized after their deaths."