FOR THAT THE SHEATH IS FINISHED.

William Ospina .

Padua, Tolima, 1954, poet, essayist and translator, National Poetry Prize Colcultura, 1992, has published among other books "those strange fugitives from the west", "a haunted algebra" and "with whom Virginia speaks walking towards the water".

FOR THAT THE COAT IS FINISHED.

Every Colombian has to tell the truth. And only when all truth can be told, when we stop being locked in the truth of others, will we learn again to argue without killing ourselves, and will we have given its meaning to the musical shout of Emiliano Zuleta that travels to Colombia seventy years ago and that gives his Name this book.

Something is changing in Colombia. After centuries of repetitions where a culture, a town and a territory were persistently erased and ignored by arrogant powers, a huge reality is emerging, an unknown people are discovering their own existence, a territory is shining light.

Sooner or later what was war will learn to be dialogue, what it was

violence will learn to be a demand and a claim, what was silence may

Become a story.