My Colombian Death
My Colombian Death is a nonfiction adventure book AbOUT the "allure of risk" by US-born, largely Asia Pacific-based adventure writer and journalist Matthew Thompson.
The book (published in Australia and New Zealand in 2008 by Pan Macmillan/Picador) covers Thompson's 2006 experiences in Colombia, when he roamed the country spending time at carnivals and with gang members and [...] dealers, ran with bulls, played the explosive drinking game of tejo, met Salvatore Mancuso, the then-head of the right-wing paramilitary United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a US-designated [...] organisation, made friends in the bohemian circles of Medellin and drank the legendary shamanic hallucinogen, yage AKA Ayahuasca.
My Colombian Death also explores the frustration that led Thompson to Throw In his job as a journalist at the Sydney Morning Herald3 and take leave of his young family for the dangers of Colombia.
"Life as it's been dished up will never present the range and depth of experience necessary for me to know myself, to test my nerve, my courage, my desires and my limits. I crave a world where tension is wired through all aspects of life, the drama shaping everything from what people murmur to their lovers to how they brave the streets."
Through his unceasing pursuit of risk Thompson finds what he is looking for, but in the case of the shamanic yage ceremony which simulates death, it becomes too much for him to bear:
"The villain in Colombia, the one to watch out for, was me. I'm the king of deception, and now that it's dawning, no matter how hard I will myself up, to get up and live and live in the truth, there's no traction, it's too [...] late. Every cell in my body is coming to total, terminal stillness. Panic detonates into endlessly expanding terror."
The Immersion journalism of My Colombian Death is a professional departure for Matthew Thompson, who had previously written more conventional newspaper and magazine journalism, yet is a winner of the University Medal in English literature at the University of Newcastle.
Thompson says he had grown frustrated with the "corporate caution" of newspaper journalism after the SMH declined to run his reportage from the war in the southern Philippines.
After the 2002 Bali bombings by Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), Thompson had been investigating the war against JI, the Abu Sayyaf and related Islamic insurgents in the islands of the southern Philippines where JI had conducted training.
External links
es:My Colombian Death