God's Punishment

Award-Winning Author (AWA) in the Best Novel - Historical Fiction (English) category and Honorable Mention in the Best LGBTQ+ Theme Book at the Latino Book Awards 2023 (ILBA) 25th Edition, God's Punishment is a powerful love story depicting the struggle against the church and God himself. Recreating the Colombia of the early twentieth century, the novel tells the story of a small town nestled in the mountains of Colombia that became a concentration camp run by the state, the church, and the medical community.

Editorial Note: Since 2000, composer Julián De La Chica has been researching Agua de Dios, Colombia, and its history as a town forcibly confining leprosy patients and those suspected of having leprosy. For his research, De La Chica visited the community and interviewed persons with information about those who crossed the Puente de Los Suspiros (Bridge of Sighs) over the Río Bogotá and into the concentration camps. Those inmates, who were forced by the Colombian government to relinquish their rights as citizens-their identities, possessions, and families-numbered into the tens of thousands until the leprosarium was closed in 1961.