Forum From the Archives: Ingrid Rojas Contreras’ New Memoir Explores Amnesia, Family History and Ghosts

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KQED

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.2 • 727 Ratings

🗓️ 27 December 2022

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In her new memoir, “The Man Who Could Move Clouds,” Ingrid Rojas Contreras tells the story of a journey she took with her mother to her native Colombia to exhume her grandfather’s remains. She intricately weaves family histories involving her curandero grandfather, her mother who could appear in two places at once and her own magical inheritance sparked by a bout of amnesia. Rojas Contreras, who now calls the Bay Area home, joins us to talk about infusing magic into story telling and how memory is both a burden and a treasure. This segment originally aired Aug. 8. Guests: Ingrid Rojas Contreras, author, "The Man Who Could Move Clouds" This segment originally aired Aug. 8. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for KQBD Podcasts comes from Rancho LaPuerta, a wellness resort 45 minutes outside of San Diego.
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0:16.3	Rancho LePuerta.com
0:17.8	Support for Forum comes from Broadway SF, presenting Parade, the musical revival based on a
0:24.0	true story. From three-time Tony-winning composer Jason Robert Brown comes the story of Leo and Lucille Frank,
0:31.9	a newlywed Jewish couple struggling to make a life in Georgia. When Leo is accused of an unspeakable crime, it propels them
0:39.8	into an unimaginable test of faith, humanity, justice, and devotion. The riveting and gloriously
0:47.4	hopeful parade plays the Orphium Theater for three weeks only, May 20th through June 8th. Tickets on sale now at Broadwaysf.com.
0:58.7	From KQED.
1:00.3	From KQD in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.
1:15.2	In northeastern Colombia, in the small towns near Venezuela, there lived a man his granddaughter
1:19.8	would call Nono.
1:21.0	He was a bad husband, a good father, and a curandero, a widely renowned healer.
1:26.2	He's the man for whom Ingrid Rojas' Contreras' new memoir,
1:29.3	the man who could move mountains is named,
1:31.3	and his journey, the people in movements he occasioned in life
1:35.3	and in death, structured this new memoir.
1:38.3	Healing, brutal violence, spiritual sickness,
1:40.3	multigenerational stories, truth, amnesia, ghosts, buried treasure.
1:45.8	Ordinary family life gets built from extraordinary things when that's what's all around.
1:50.1	We'll talk Colombia, granderos, culture, and cast.
1:53.6	That's all coming up next after this news. Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. We're joined this morning by Ingrid Rojas-Contreras, the author of a new memoir, The Man Who Could Move Clouds. It's a book that's about Colombia, its stories, its families, the violence that shape them.
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