Pablo Montoya (Colombia)

Por: Pablo Montoya
Traductor: Nicolás Suescún

Thebes

I have painted the dew, the riverbed and the ocean. I have painted the mud, the sand and the stone. I have painted the stars, the sun and the moon. I have painted the panthers lying in wait, the hares fleeing, the camels with their load, the oxen and the plow, the dogs and the asses and the crying cranes. I have painted with the red, the green, the blue and the yellow, with the white and the black, the attires and the nakedness of man. I have painted the harvests and the plagues. The prayer. I have painted the continuous prayer. And the happiness. The brief happiness. I have painted my face which is the repeated face of a people. I have painted the birth and the voyage to death that lasts centuries. The passing of time, I have also painted. I have no name. Perhaps I had one. And if I have one, it is now unpronounceable. But, if you want to hear it, go down the steps. Go through the aisles and the doors. Go into the tombs. Light the torch. Look at the walls.

Tomb

Pablo Montoya was born in Barrancabermeja, Colombia, in 1963. Poet, narrator, musician and university professor. He carried out studies of Music in the Superior School of Music of Tunja. Graduate in philosophy and letters from the University Santo Tomás de Aquino of Bogotá. Master and doctorate in Latin American Literature from the University of the New Sorboune, Paris. Since August of 2002 he is professor of literature of the University of Antioquia. He coordinates in Colombia the international collection files of the UNESCO. He has published: Cuentos de Niquía, 1996; La sinfónica y otros cuentos musicales, 1997; Habitantes, 1999; Viajeros, 1999; Razia, 2001. Winner of the National Competition of short-story "Germán Vargas" of the newspaper El Tiempo, 1993. Winner of the scholarship for foreign writers of the National Center of the Book of France, in 1999, for Viajeros. he was awarded the prize Colección de Autores Antioqueños with the book Habitantes, in 2000. His stories have been included in different anthologies of Colombia, Europe and Latin America.