“He offers a text with diverse planes of reality that interlock and are woven together into a narrative thread in which macheteros — machete fencing artists — revindicate their knowhow as an art form of a century-long battle.”

“‘Elástico de sombra’ is one hundred serious pages, but they’re very playful on the surface, fun, lighthearted in the best sense. A novel that deserves to be read.”

“‘Elástico de sombra’ is the sixth novel by Juan Cárdenas, one of the most original Colombian authors of his generation who, in this book, pays an extraordinary homage to the Afro-descendant culture, an odyssey that will stand through time, giving voice and protagonism to those who were negated by history, but brought back by literature.”

“The travel, the staggered route in sequential parts, is what uplifts this story that is set in plain nature—the basin of the Cauca river is the point of departure—in the rural interior of Colombia. A landscape with Black people, indigenous people, countrymen, among which are Afro-Colombians, the last masters of the art of “machteros” who are also an example of the minorities who are overlooked and mistreated by powerful, urban whiteness...The novel culminates in the perceptible enchantment of a colloquial prose, of humble and everyday register, with a lexicon and phraseology that is crafted with true skill: the result is authentic enjoyment for the reader.”

“The choice of the so-called black machete as a leitmotif—opposite the tool of agricultural labor that turns into a weapon in a religious crusade in pursuit of the ownership of land—serves to build a story that is a powerful vindication of the mythical African seed that crossed the Atlantic on slave ships and permeated the Caribbean basin...The oral histories of macheteros are woven through with great fluidity in Cárdenas’ narration, which gives the reader a great joy that is in danger of extinction, the kind that used to be enjoyed by firelight at home or by the warmth of a campfire that safeguarded the nights spent out in the open.”

“An emotional and thrilling story, a literary joy (verbal and written) that proves, once again, Cárdenas’ incredible talent.”

“The initiatory trip of the two protagonists becomes a wise web of magical worlds, social wars, and doubts about the relevance of having a stranger making them known.”