We are survivors
Published by Editorial Alfaguara for Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial. BUY THE BOOK HERE.
"Equis would blindfold him. He would do things to him or force him to do them. Impossible for a seven- or eight-year-old boy to know that he had become the victim of someone ten years older, someone he considered his friend, the oldest of his friends."
"From the school, I heard inconceivable arguments [...]. They said that what he had done with us was "an inappropriate game", they described it as -ugly things-. And that thanks to those actions a -yellow light- had been lit. The yellow light was barely enough to move him from locality."
This is an uncomfortable book, it talks about the violence exercised by adults against minors that left marks and conditioned their lives. It talks about difficult situations that occurred in childhoods that were not cared for, in which their confidence, physical integrity and mental health were abused.
Eight writers listened to eight survivors of abuse and told their stories from a place of empathy and listening with the best tool they have: the word. Where silence is the abuser's accomplice, words are the victims' ally. The stories reflected in this anthology allow us to see beyond the silenced, connecting solitary pains with common pain, in an invitation to stop being silent and encourage us to dream together of a brighter future.
"My current life I like, sometimes I get to feel proud of myself. I was able to heal. But there lives inside me the shadow of a silence that used to be the most powerful mandate, a hole in the memory that led me to forget that which anyway came back again and again in tears, anguish and anger."
"I felt so much shame: I had married this beast. Suddenly I'm this babe and all my demons are surrounding me, harming me, atomizing me."
"Blas is not a big talker [...]. But after a while, yes, he started to talk. Before the complaint, and before the threats [...]. Blas talks. He says confinements. He says touching. He talks about physical violence."
"When I was a child I was abused by a neighbor. [And who was I going to tell at that time? What everyone expected was that my dad would abuse me or one of my siblings, and it didn't happen. But this neighbor did."
"Several times daddy wants to come into my room, he is still convinced he can do what he wants to me, I scream before he can lay a hand on me [...]. Mom knows and does nothing."
"The psychologist asked her name, how old she was, what school she went to, how many siblings..., finally he asked her to tell him why she was there. Sofia took a deep breath and told him that she had been raped by her father."
