Official Interview: Kim Ekemar

[kandscreeley]

Today's Chat with Sarah features Kim Ekemar author of STROESSNER & the Reign of Terror.

Official Interview

Kindle edition on Amazon

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1. Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

I've been fortunate with opportunities to travel the world while counting Mexico, France, Sweden and Spain as my home at one time or another. In the past, a part of my life was dedicated to business ventures: an art gallery, an advertising agency and commodity trading.

My travels have taken me to faraway places and amazing situations. I arrived in Mongolia just as the country's revolution for independence from the USSR started. A few years later, I was taken up the Sepik River by crocodile hunters in Papua Guinea. I've crossed the Australian desert; climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Kenya; gone horseback riding to where the Río Magdalena in Colombia is born; shared a night camp beneath the stars with dromedaries in the Sahara; hiked the Inca trail the wrong direction in Peru; and much more. Your readers can find out additional details on my website www.kimekemar.com.

However, the most harrowing experience I've had was to be arbitrarily jailed in a center for torture in Paraguay during the Stroessner dictatorship, under the absurd accusation of being a terrorist.

During the past three decades, my focus has been on artistic expressions – painting, photography, design and architecture, but mainly on writing. The sources for the things I'm interested in when I write are people's passions; places and customs that I've experienced; and stories or situations from life that intrigue me. However, I'm convinced that none of the aforementioned is enough to create a work of literature – or any kind of artwork, for that matter – unless it's supported by a strong, fundamental storytelling idea.

My interests are centered around languages, music, traveling to extraordinary places, and all visual arts. These elements, I believe, occupy a large place in what I write. Moreover, I'm certain they make it easier to visualize my literary work.

2. Which authors have been your biggest influence?

James Clavell, Mario Puzo, Patricia Highsmith, Alexandre Dumas, Anthony Burgess, Agatha Christie, Charles Palliser, Edgar Allan Poe, Ernest Hemingway, among many others.

3. Let's discuss your book Stroessner & the Reign of Terror. Can you give us a quick synopsis for those who don't know?

I believe the most concise way to do this is to copy the review from Clarion Forward Reviews:

"Alfredo Stroessner's thirty-five-year regime was the longest-lasting dictatorship in twentieth-century South America. Part historical text and part political thriller frightening in its reality, 'El Reino del Terror' presents a wealth of information on a tormented era in Latin America's history.

Ekemar's narrative, supported by personal experience and extensive research, paints a chilling picture of the pervasive human rights violations of his iron-fisted rule, which was marked by personal and political corruption, sexual depravity, and the protection of Nazi fugitives, drug traffickers, and terrorists.

The text contains reminders that the practice of torture was extensive under Stroessner. Ekemar also reveals the extent to which the United States knew about, and was responsible for, the abuses that took place during 'Operation Condor', a Cold War-era campaign of political repression and state terror that involved intelligence operations and the assassination of opponents in South America and elsewhere.

Front cover art, while graphic and disturbing, is appropriate for the nature and content of the book. 'El Reino del Terror' is a powerful call for the truth to be recognized and taught, and a warning to us all of the perils of failing to honor our human rights and guard our freedom." - A 5-star rated review by Clarion Foreword Reviews

4. What made you decide to write this book about Alfredo Stroessner?

When you're arrested by an authoritarian regime's political police falsely accusing you of being a threat to a Pentagon general sent by the US Secretary of State, Taiwan's chancellor and Alfredo Stroessner himself, and then being held incommunicado by Stroessner's chief executioner before managing to escape, I think that it becomes obvious why I've developed an interest in Stroessner's regime.

By sheer coincidence, years later I came across a BBC interview with the activist Dr. Martín Almada after he had found an estimated 800,000 documents and photos that Stroessner's police corps had produced from 1954 to 1989. It occurred to me that there could be a mention in the Archive of Terrors of what had taken place in the case of my own prison escape.

So, in 2014 I flew to Paraguay to investigate the documents in the state-of-the-art facility where these documents are now housed at Paraguay's Supreme Court. I found what I was looking for, and with the help of these and the personal notes I had wisely written down immediately after escaping Paraguay, I started putting together the narrative as close to the truth as possible.

On a separate note, I'd like to mention that the Kindle version doesn't include the many photos and copies of documents that can be found in the printed versions of the book.

5. The book describes a lot of hard times. How difficult was it for you to write about this subject?

It depends on what you mean by what was difficult.

While doing the research for the book, I found myself continuously discovering new facts about Alfredo Stroessner and his henchmen's depravity. Learning about these facts was hard.

The part of being kept in a jail in appalling conditions and watching how some accused subjects were subject to various degrees of torture was terrifying.

As for putting together the actual writing into sentences and descriptions, this wasn't difficult at all since the material became increasingly more interesting as I delved deeper into it. Somehow, the text seemed to arrange itself while I was typing it.

6. How much research did you do for this book? What was the most interesting thing you learned?

I dedicated about fourteen months from start to finish. I flew to Paraguay with the sole purposes of meeting Martín Almada, who had found the Archives of Terror in 1994 and to peruse these documents in custody at the Supreme Court in Asunción. What followed was a lot more investigation, interviewing witnesses and research using the Internet.

The most interesting and impressive moment was meeting Martín Almada, from whom I learnt about Operation Condor – i.e. Henry Kissinger's 1975 brainchild to suppress any unwanted political opposition by supporting Pinochet in Chile as well as the dictators in Uruguay, Paraguay Argentina and Brazil.

7. Is there a particular section or passage that you thought was most poignant?

At first, I thought the fact that I had been arbitrarily arrested as a terrorist, watching the torture of people, was upsetting. But, years later, when I was able to scrutinize in detail how the mechanisms of the Stroessner regime, I was completely taken aback by the sheer indifference that existed at the political top while they were taking advantage of, and abusing, its population.

8. What's next for you? Any books in the works?

By now, I've had the privilege to publish thirty-plus books in different genres and three languages: Novels, crime fiction, whodunnits, short story collections, lyrics and non-fiction.

Presently I'm working on two books. I'm halfway through one to be called Broadcast from the Future, which will contain a dozen short stories in the near and distant future. These short stories are ideas I've been plotting on and off for a couple of decades. Recently, I came to the conclusion that I should stop procrastinating and hurry up and publish this one before the future catches up.

The other one I'm working on, I'm not yet sure if I should publish it as a quite voluminous tome of collected work with a shared theme under the name Strange Cases. Or, since each of these stories are planned to be at least three extensive chapters long, perhaps publish them as novelettes as a Strange Cases series ... each about 80-120 pages long. Perhaps your readership can give me their opinion? Do they prefer a 1,000-word tome or 100-word novelettes?

After these works have been finished, I'd like to continue with a special project of mine that I've been working on for fifteen years, baptized "The Delirious Fact of Being Alive". And then, after that one, I have more than a dozen other literary outlines in my backlog for things I'd like to put into writing. Let's see how many I'll be able to publish before the grim reaper approaches ...

To sum things up: On the pro side, there is no lack of ideas. The con is that time is a constantly diminishing resource, working against those ideas to come to fruition.

I like to end with lighter questions.

9. What historical figure (living or dead) do you most want to have a chat with?

Marco Polo.

10. What's your favorite meal?

Toast Skagen with bleak roe, and smoked reindeer afterwards.

11. Are you an early bird or a night owl?

My natural inclination is to be a night owl but, living in the countryside, I tend to wake up to irritating bird song at dawn. So, to sum it up, I guess it means I don't get enough sleep.