“Nos toca crear nuestras narrativas y la academia puede ayudar mucho.” That is how Alí Bantú Ashanti, Director del Colectivo de Justicia Racial (Colombia), defined our work. As scholars and members of the academy, he suggested, our main task is to create spaces and opportunities for Afrodescendant communities to share, disseminate and reflect on their own narratives.

I love to ride the bus in Latin America.  The range of parcels, the crammed-in commuters, the drivers outside my window swerving through city streets, and the criers announcing routes in sing-song tones make the experience better than any amusement park ride.  But at some point, what always strikes me about the bus are the people who stay on long after all others have departed. 

“I came to Comala because I had been told that my father, a man named Pedro Páramo, lived there.” Thus, Juan Rulfo began Pedro Páramo, one of the masterpieces in Spanish-language literature. In this Mexican novel, the past continues to influence the present up until the point where the two of them overlap. The line that differentiates them subtly vanishes.