Synopsis

Set in the author’s homeland, Colombia, this is the heartbreaking story of Leonor, former child soldier of the FARC, a rural guerrilla group.

Paula Delgado-Kling followed Leonor for nineteen years, from shortly after she was an active member of the FARC forced into sexual slavery by a commander thirty-four years her senior, through her rehabilitation and struggle with alcohol and drug addiction, to more recent days as the mother of two girls.

Leonor’s physical beauty, together with resourcefulness and imagination in the face of horrendous circumstances, helped her carve a space for herself in a male-dominated world. She never stopped believing that she was a woman of worth and importance. It took her many years of therapy to accept that she was also a victim.

Throughout the story of Leonor, Delgado-Kling interweaves the experiences of her own family, involved with Colombian politics since the 19th century and deeply afflicted, too, by the decades of violence there.

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Excerpt

From Chapter 8

After Mercedes whipped her, Leonor lost track of the number of nights that she slept on the street. Having learnt the lesson from her father’s behavior, Leonor dressed like a boy, and she believed it was insurance against men touching her. But by her dainty hands and her walk, and by her small waist (and perhaps she already possessed that habit of hers, of coquettishly swaying her shoulders), it was easy to tell—even by her voice—that here was a beautiful girl.

On the street, Leonor met Redhead. He was a boy her age—she called him “el pelirojo”—because he had paprika-like freckles sprinkled on his cheeks and hair like the head of a matchstick. To know that Redhead—though lanky and feeble—kept a piece of a broken bottle within his grasp consoled Leonor. She was sure he would protect her, and so she followed his lead, and they squatted inside deserted buildings. With him securing the space, she was able to give in to slumber for a few hours.

Some days, Leonor and Redhead sold slices of watermelon at streetlights. They were employed by an old woman who had approached them. But Leonor was often starved, and she devoured the watermelon, its juices jetting down her chin and arms. The woman slapped Leonor when she came back without money, and so Leonor went car-to-car begging drivers for pocket change. Most cars were scraps of tin, spewing dark smoke. Once or twice, a luxury car, overdone with tinted windows, shiny hubcaps and immense headlights, circled the neighborhood. As Leonor approached the cars, the drivers rolled up the windows. She stood by the car windows, and the drivers looked elsewhere or pretended to fiddle with the radio. She caught glimpses of her reflection on the cars’ side-view mirrors, and she was repulsed by her tattered clothes and soiled face.

Redhead was shrewd, and one day, he returned with plates loaded with mountains of rice and arepas. By word of mouth, he discovered they would be offered food if they showed up at FARC camps located in Mocoa’s jungle periphery. Feeling faint, aware she could not go another day without food, Leonor ventured into FARC camps to be fed. She accepted seconds of rice, beans, and lentils, and soon, she helped herself to them. She became a regular at the encampments, and she began thinking of FARC members as friends and allies, compassionate to her situation. A FARC nurse disinfected the wound on her leg, from her mother’s beating, and covered it with bandages after white pus oozed from it.

Some nights, Leonor lingered by the fire in the middle of camp while someone strummed a guitar and others sang. It was then she was able to sleep uninterrupted, without worrying whether Redhead and his broken glass were watching over her.

Members of the FARC intermingled in the daily life of her town and of the entire area, and many of them were people she knew. Some locals wore FARC fatigues, others didn’t—but nearly all of Mocoa’s residents were sympathetic to the group’s Communist roots. For Leonor and for many teens in Colombia’s southern communities, the FARC camps offered diversions. There was booze, and sometimes there was dancing, and there was also the thrill of being allowed to handle a gun. The camps were akin to a right of passage, a way to rebel against parents.

Mercedes kept the door of their home locked. When Leonor strolled by, Sergio rushed to the window and waved kisses at his sister.

About the Author

Paula Delgado-Kling holds degrees in comparative literature/French civilizations, international affairs, and creative writing from Brown University, Columbia University, and The New School, respectively. Leonor, for which she received two grants from the Canadian Council for the Arts, is her first book. Excerpts of this book have appeared in Narrative, The Literary Review, Pacifica Literary Review, and Happano.org in Japan. Her work for the Mexican monthly news magazine Gatopardo was nominated for the Simon Bolivar Award, Colombia’s top journalism prize, and anthologized in Las Mejores Crónicas de Gatopardo (Random House Mondadori, 2006). Born in Bogota, Colombia and raised in Toronto, Canada, Delgado-Kling now resides in New York City.

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