By Emma Reyes (1919?2003), a painter, from a letter written in 1969 to Germán Arciniegas, a historian and journalist. The Book of Emma Reyes, a memoir, will be published in August by Penguin Classics. Translated from the Spanish by Daniel Alarcón.
The house we lived in consisted of one very small room with no windows and a door that faced the street. This room was located on Carrera Séptima in a working-class neighborhood in Bogotá called San Cristóbal. The tram passed directly in front of our house and stopped a few meters ahead at a beer factory called Leona…