Laura Restrepo and her new novel: A cruel god inspired by Trump and Netanyahu

Colombian writer Laura Restrepo imagines a world ruled by a god without compassion , who hides under the name of Abismo but whose face reminds her of real leaders: "He's a bit like Trump and a bit like Netanyahu," the author admits in an interview .

Restrepo (Bogotá, 1950) describes his latest novel, Soy la daga y soy la herida , published by Alfaguara, which he presented a few days ago in Bogotá, as a "ferocious farce", written between indignation at the war in Gaza and helplessness in the face of the complicit silence of many governments.

The executioner in her story, Mercy Dagger, is an obedient killer who begins to falter when a teenage girl unexpectedly awakens in him a Hamletian doubt: "He is filled with doubts about whether he should kill or not kill," explains the author.

Dagger is a character that Restrepo had already created in a previous story and who now takes on a new life: "It already existed in a previous story, a story in a book called Pecado (2016)," he says, explaining that "it was an interesting experience, like revisiting that old friend."

For Restrepo, who was the first Latin American woman to win a Planeta Prize for Delirio in 2004, the novel is a rebellion disguised as a comedy : a grotesque scenario where the executioner is humanized and the god embodies the worst representations of contemporary power.

"I wanted Abismo (as he calls the god) to be a bit like these nefarious, all-powerful characters who are capable of annihilating a town and stripping it of its land to make a spa," he explains.

Inspired by her failed attempt to enter Gaza with Doctors Without Borders , the author starkly observes how the killing of thousands of Palestinians has been "silenced" by the powers and distorted by fake news.

"We are a generation that has witnessed a genocide covered up by silence," he laments, recalling the question that arose at the gates of Gaza: "There has to be a way to express this in literature."

In this context, his novel is both a critique and a catharsis . Abismo, that god who decides who lives and who dies, represents institutionalized dehumanization: "Leaders capable of razing villages to build spas," he says, as if it were a fable, although in reality it speaks of the present.

Restrepo knows the edge of violence well, having participated in the peace process with the M-19 guerrilla group and having experienced the tensions between war and reconciliation in Colombia.

"I believe we have been a people subjected to tremendous doses of violence and at the same time a people who are constantly fighting for peace," he affirms, adding that despite "ups and downs, failures and achievements," Colombia is a people "convinced that we must constantly fight for peace."

That's why he appreciates his country's insistence on seeking agreements , but contrasts this with criticism that Europe hasn't tried to mediate in the war in Ukraine: "It could have stopped it, but it didn't."

Although the novel focuses on Mercy Dagger and her moral dilemma, the women, protagonists in previous works such as Hot Sur or The Dark Bride , act as silent catalysts for change in I Am the Dagger and I Am the Wound .

The teenager, who is named Dix, triggers the "crack in the executioner" without saying a word, "simply her existence disturbs him."

"Love shakes him," the author summarizes. As if even in the darkest scenario there's still room for breakdown, doubt, and redemption.