Philippe Sands and Juan Gabriel Vásquez

Like few others, the careers of Philippe Sands and Juan Gabriel Vásquez combine literary narration with a reflection on injustice, violence and historical memory. Years after the trial of Augusto Pinochet, in which Sands participated as a lawyer for the prosecution, the author is once again delving into the events of the Chilean dictatorship: in the book Carrer Londres 38. Dos casos d’impunitat: Pinochet a Anglaterra i un nazi a Patagònia, [Londres 38. Two Cases of Impunity: Pinochet in England and a Nazi in Patagonia], Sands reveals unexpected links between Nazism and colonial history. For his part, the Colombian writer Juan Gabriel Vásquez has analysed the history of violence in his country and in contemporary Latin America in books such as The Sound of Things Falling (Riverhead Books, 2014) or The Shape of the Ruins (Riverhead Books, 2018), and he has become a fundamental voice for understanding the reality on that continent. In this conversation moderated by journalist and author Guillermo Altares, two of the greatest authors of our present talk about how literature can help us confront our most painful past and combat impunity and injustice.