"Here are the real and unforgettable voices of Colombia’s long nightmare. They tell us of normal lives shattered by trauma, suffering, violence, and redeemed by love, resilience, courage or hard-earned wisdom. I read these oral tales with a knot in my stomach, frightened and moved, and finally amazed by this lesson: when people find the strength to tell us what has happened to them, no matter how horrendous, a terrible yet universal beauty somehow emerges, always casting light on the mystery of being human."
—Francisco Goldman, author of Say Her Name
"Outside the U.S. media's lights and whir, the largest crisis in the world of forced displacement from home is taking place in Colombia. Throwing Stones at the Moon makes it personal through these narratives of loved and difficult life, vivid and specific to Colombia's places and to the families torn and struggling amid the long war. Brodzinsky and Schoening convey these people's tender and bitter stories, of resilience and loss, of cruelty and solidarity, in their own full voices. Stories that don't end with an act of violence, but that call out for compassion, and for justice."
—John Lindsay-Poland, Director for Latin America and the Caribbean of the Fellowship for Reconciliation
"Poignant."—Kirkus
"Human rights journalists Brodzinsky and Schoening geographically organize intimate oral histories from individuals living through pervasive violence among Colombia's drug cartels, military forces, and rebels. Often astonishing quotes double as headings...piquing readers' curiosity and conscience...Readers concerned with human rights and Latin American politics will find this account of violence and survival both sad and inspiring."—Publishers Weekly
Praise for the Voice of Witness series:
“These books are amazing … beautifully produced, with incredible editing and literary sensibility. Voice of Witness has done a better job than I’ve seen anybody do with having people tell their stories in a way that really engages you.”
—Rachel Maddow
“The series does not so much weave a tapestry from different experiences as braid a rope, a lifeline by which we might haul ourselves into a less ignorant, more actively compassionate future. In them, the specific illuminates the general, destroying preconceptions, stereotypes, and cop-out responses along the way.”
—Richard Vernon, Sojourners Magazine
“In a time when history is told in cheap television re-enactments, if at all, and personal tragedy is gobbled up in rapidly digestible magazine photos and reality shows, this project goes against the grain.”
—Guardian UK
“The soon-to-be-released book, Throwing Stones At The Moon (Voice of Witness, 2012) reads like a collection of literary short stories, but, in this case, the stories are both real and horrifying. The stories of those gathered in Moon are told by the Colombian victims of human rights abuses themselves…Given that these voices are rarely heard, this book is invaluable.”
—Huffington Post
Bleak first-person accounts of violence and displacement in Colombia over many decades. In a lawless struggle for power over the rural farmers and laborers who make up the landscape of this deeply scarred, war-torn country, left-wing guerrillas emerging in the 1960s and '70s and the paramilitary right-wing opposing them from the '80s onward, fueled by the drug profit and mafia cartels, have been responsible for thousands of senseless deaths and the upheaval of families and villages. Editors Brodzinsky and Schoening have compiled a useful, moving set of oral histories of this horrendous period of bizarre, seemingly arbitrary killings and intimidation. Instilling fear seemed to be the aim of the sudden appearance within a village of the ragtag left- or right-wing paramilitary men, who dragged people out of their homes to rape, maim and murder. Remembering the terror visited on her village of El Salado forms Emilia Gonzalez's opening narrative--the paramilitary forces raped her 12-year-old daughter and herded the villagers onto the soccer field for a killing spree. Later, the victims might spot their tormentors in the army purportedly guarding the villages; there seemed to be no end to the absurdity of the violence. Death threats, forced planting of coca, bombings, maiming by mines, deliberate dismemberment, assassination of trade unionists and people seeking government redress and protection, and persecution of Colombian refugees who fled to Ecuador--these stories express a horrific experience and plea for humanitarian intervention. A helpful history of Colombia by Winifred Tate, timeline and glossary of terms close this extensive, poignant study. A valiant effort of research and consolidation.
