Colombia is home to the longest running guerilla war in the Western Hemisphere. During the Truce is a memoir of Bogota in 1985, a time when the M19 and FARC guerillas were in truce with the Colombian government. Doherty takes the reader to luxurious military compounds, guerilla camps, and tar paper slums. She disputes the modern media soundbite of “narco-guerillas.” The truth, she asserts, is far more complicated, and the distorted history we are given hides a U.S. supported war which profits right-wing Colombian elites and transnational corporations at the expense of the Colombian people and American taxpayers.
“Doherty embeds a bewitching tale of her experiences as an American college student on a junior term abroad within a searing excursion through Colombia’s history. The two narratives speak to one another, and to the reader, with subtlety and power. The result is at once shocking and delightful.”
—Alison Richard, Crosby Professor emerita of Anthropology, Yale University
