HAVANA TIMES – When I began writing “My Name Is Colombia”, I wasn’t thinking about becoming a writer, much less imagining that the story would eventually become a book and be published. What I needed was to tell something that was too painful for me to keep silent about. I wanted my daughters to know my version of what had happened and, over time, to understand why a chapter of our lives had driven us so far apart.
I was born in Bucaramanga, Colombia. At the age of twenty-nine, I emigrated to Chile in search of a better future for my family. Like so many others who leave their country behind, I traveled with the hope of finding new opportunities, stability, and peace of mind. I had worked to build a life, and I believed that the efforts of an honest person were enough to protect what I loved.
I was wrong.
After my separation from my wife and several family disputes, I could never have imagined the direction my life would take. I was accused of sexually abusing my daughters, a false accusation that destroyed my life. The legal proceedings that followed changed my existence: I went from being a professional trying to provide for his family to becoming a man under suspicion, subjected to a criminal investigation and deprived of his freedom.
Prison was an experience that tested everything I thought I knew about myself and others. There, I came to know the fear, humiliation, and loneliness of someone who feels he has lost control of his own life. I also discovered that even in a place where survival seems to take precedence over everything else, gestures of humanity can emerge—gestures one never forgets.
Ultimately, I was unanimously acquitted by the court that tried my case in Santiago de Chile on July 19, 2011. I returned to Colombia with the freedom I had longed for so deeply, but also with wounds that did not disappear when I crossed the border. The acquittal brought the criminal proceedings to an end, but it could not give me back the years I had lost or automatically repair the family bonds that had been broken.
That was when writing took on a different meaning.
At first, the book began as a series of letters to my daughters. I wanted to speak to them about their father and tell them my story, explain who I was and what I had experienced, and give them the opportunity to get to know me from a perspective different from the one they might have received during those years of conflict. I did not write because I believed I had all the answers. I wrote because I needed to bear witness to what had happened and because silence seemed to me a way of giving up an essential part of myself.
However, as I pieced the events back together, I realized that the story did not belong to me alone. It also spoke to something that can happen in many families: when adults turn their differences into a battle to win, children can end up trapped in a conflict that should never have been theirs. I wanted the book to help people reflect on that harm and on our responsibility to protect those who need us most.
The title came to me during my time in prison. When I told my cellmates, “My name is Colombia,” I was taking refuge in the creation of a character who posed as a drug trafficker. In those words, I found a way to feel protected in a place that shows little mercy to those who enter under an accusation of a sexual nature. From the moment I arrived, I lived with the lie, the difficulty of maintaining it, and the fear that it would be discovered.
Over time, writing also forced me to look inward. Anger and resentment could explain some of my reactions, but they could not become the only way I continued to live. I came to understand that forgiveness does not mean denying the harm suffered, justifying it, or forgetting what happened. It means trying not to let pain determine who we are forever.
Today, “My Name Is Colombia” has a new life as an audiobook on Spotify. Hearing this story narrated has allowed me to share it in a different way and bring it to people who might never have come across the printed book.
I do not know what each reader or listener will feel when they finish it. I only hope they find something more than an account of an injustice: an invitation to reflect on family, human dignity, the weight of our decisions, and the possibility of rising again after an experience that seems to destroy us.
I wrote this book so that my daughters could know my truth. Over the years, I came to understand that it could also serve as a reminder of something we sometimes forget: a person is not defined solely by what happens to them, but also by what they choose to do with the wounds life leaves behind.