Cuando éramos felices y no lo sabíamos

This is not a book about politics. Nor is it a report or a sociological analysis. It is the chronicle of a writer who tries to understand what happens when she lives in a prolonged state of emergency; what happens when life goes on, despite everything, and people resign themselves to living it amid the rubble. Fleeing from the great political speeches or the press headlines, this work shows us the daily life of Venezuelans and, with it, the effects of the State in daily life. Through four trips from Colombia to Venezuela, Melba Escobar reveals to us, in an extraordinary way, another geography: that of the man from the popular neighborhood or the woman from the middle class who subsist in the midst of the serious economic and political crisis; and that of those who have been forced to emigrate and survive in extreme conditions. It is a look at the power of human beings to give a renewed meaning to things, draw strength from where there is none and reinvent the present. Loaded with humanity and respect for the other, this book, which runs entirely from dialogue with ordinary people, tells us not only about Venezuela, but also about the consequences of the erosion of democracy in the daily activities of population, a premonitory reality for many other countries.