The Night Will Be Long (sera largo la noche) is a story about the rise of evangelical churches in Colombia and Latin America.
Fabinho Henriquez, a poor orphan from Minas Gerais state of Brazil, becomes a mining entrepreneur in Amazon. He establishes an evangelical church celebrating his own miraculous transformation and to give moral support to other poor souls living and working in the jungles. He gets a Colombian business partner Fritz Almayer, who had escaped to Brazilian amazon after harassment, extortion and threat from FARC guerillas in Colombia. The Colombian steals the money and wife of Henriquez and runs back to his country and starts his own evangelical group. The Brazilian pastor tries to kill the Colombian. Investigation of this assassination attempt by Colombian authorities and a journalist is the main narrative in the novel.
Santiago Gamboa has narrated the emergence of evangelical faith in the context of Colombia’s background of FARC guerillas, paramilitaries, drug trafficking, violence and crime. He has focused on the post-Peace Accord times of rehabilitation of ex-guerillas and victims of the violence. He describes in detail the way the evangelical churches operate. The Brazilian and Colombian pastors in the novel are themselves children of poverty and violence and had suffered the worst. They are naturally able to relate to the struggles of the poor masses and the victims of violence. This is in contrast to the Catholic clergy most of whom are out of touch with the reality of the poor and marginaliSed.
The evangelical pastors exploit the believers by making them share a portion of their income as tithe. They use the churches for money laundering, making use of their privileged exemption from taxes and accountability. They network with the rich and powerful for mutual enrichment and gains. They have their own TV networks and other business ventures. Politicians provide protection to the pastors who return the favour with votes of their followers. The pro-evangelical politicians promote the agenda of the pastors in legislatures and governments.
Latin America used to be the largest catholic region and Brazil was the largest catholic country in the world. But in the last five decades, millions of Catholics have joined the evangelical churches. In Brazil, the number of Pentecostals have increased to 46.7 million in 2020 (out of the total population of 210 million) from 6.8 million in in 1970. In the same period, Guatemala saw the Pentecostal strength reaching 2.9 million from 196,000. Seven countries in the region including Uruguay, the Dominican Republic and the five in Central America have non-catholics in the majority.
This is the third novel of Gamboa I have read. The first two were: Return to the Dark Valley and Night Prayers. I like his profound analysis of the social and political issues of Colombia while narrating stories of murders and investigations filled with suspense, thrill and mystery.
The author is an expert in Latin American affairs
