An eminently readable and beautifully written (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) chronicle of Colombias descent into decades of civil war through the lens of an intimate, multi-generational tale of upheaval and betrayal.

When presumed president-elect Jorge Elicer Gaitn, champion of the working class and harbinger of a new era of progressive social change, is assassinated on the eve of Colombias 1948 presidential election, the capital is plunged into bloodshed. So begins a singularly brutal period of Colombias history known simply as la violenciaa bloody civil war that spawned decades of turmoil and splintered the country into ever-shifting factions.

The Violence is a sinuous narrative, melding family saga with history (Time)told not from the political center of the war but from the mountainous finca that Adriana E. Ramrezs family tended to for generations, and through the eyes of her formidable grandmother, Esther. With startling lyricism, Ramrez illuminates the specter of violencefrom guerrilla warfare to the brutalities found so often in romantic relationships to the spontaneous and senseless violence steeped into everyday Colombian life during this periodand the threat that it poses to a country, and a family, that is trying to stay whole. Gracefully braiding together history, family history, and personal narrative, Adriana E. Ramrez traces these parallel stories of upheaval in a sweeping portrait of a country and family in flux.