Héctor Abad Faciolince - Remembering His Father

Héctor Abad Faciolince, a prominent Columbian writer -- novelist, journalist, essayist -- born in 1958, has honored his father with a memoir called Oblivion. The father, for whom his son is named, was a doctor, professor, and activist who fought for social justice and equality. His "holistic vision of healthcare led him to found the Columbia National School of Public Health." His political views and activism were not appreciated by certain people in power.

In 1987, paramilitaries delivered six bullets into the head of Abad's then 60-year-old father's head.

(Gabriel Garcia Marquez, probably Columbia's most famous citizen, has said of his homeland that "there has always been civil war and there always will be. It's a way of life.")

"I loved my father with an animal love," Abad writes, "his smell and also the memory of his smell on the bed when he was away on a trip." Abad constantly asks of himself that he live up to his father's ideals. "I find myself obeying him even now."

Abad's mother was a "daily-Mass Catholic." Abad's enlightened father said to his young son, "Go to Mass so your mother doesn't worry, but it's all lies."
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I haven't read this book but I have to read this book; the above information comes from various Internet sources and from a review of Oblivion in the Sunday Times Book Review.