Laura Restrepo (Colombia, 1950– ), the author of half a dozen major novels, is fast emerging as one of the leading female writers of Spanish America. The pervasive socio-historical preoccupations of her work might seem to merge almost seamlessly within a body of Spanish American novelistic writing traditionally judged by its social effectiveness. But such a first impression is misleading – at least in part: if there is one common thread running through her diverse literary output it is her consistent blurring of boundaries between traditionally distinct identities, categories and concepts: truth and fiction, historical fact and imaginative re-creation; the sacred and the profane. Temporal and spatial border territories recur in her work: Siete por Tres, the protagonist of La multitud errante (2001) [A Tale of the Dispossessed], is born on 1 January 1950 (on the cusp, therefore, of mid-century) in a rural village located on the border of Huila and Tolima (2001: 25). He is discovered in the church vestibule at the liminal midnight hour. In later life, he engages in a fruitless search for his missing guardian, Matilde Lina, who, as the narrator reflects, ‘se fue al limbo, donde habitan los que no están ni vivos ni muertos’ (2001: 14) [went into limbo, the abode of people who are neither alive nor dead].