Dreaming the Impossible
Challenging the unequal gaze
In this powerful memoir of collective memory, Paula Moreno brings to life the stories of social leaders whose quiet yet transformative work has helped reshape a nation.
On the streets, countless stories of leadership remain untold—a quiet, extraordinary force woven into the fabric of everyday life. There is immense value in this invisible leadership, in the unseen or less visible leaders who hold the promise of a future that risks being perpetually deferred or fading away if they do not construct or champion it themselves. My task is not to create these stories but to illuminate them, to bring into sharp focus what so often goes unnoticed. What are we missing by failing to see? Why does the urgency to tell these stories burn so fiercely within me? I am drawn to the epic narratives of communities whose resilience and wisdom challenge privilege, inspire the marginalized to envision new horizons, and build a transformative power capable of crossing boundaries and sparking systemic change.
Through carefully reconstructed testimonies, Moreno reveals how processes of empowerment can reduce inequality and ignite lasting social change. She shows that when individuals recognize their own power, they can challenge entrenched systems, break limiting paradigms, and become agents of change in their communities and beyond. Though their leadership often goes unseen, their impact has changed communities and opened new paths toward equality.
These deeply human and inspiring stories invite readers to rethink what is possible—and to discover how courage, awareness, and collective action can transform not only society, but our own sense of purpose and agency.
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SPANISH | Ediciones B/PRH Colombia
Film Rights
Rights to the first chapter sold to Netflix and adapted into the series Defying Destiny (“María la Caprichosa”)
Reviews
"I celebrate this new book by Paula Moreno because it fulfills the essential conditions of a good book: the search for that otherness that we are and that is also Colombia, and the construction of multiplicity. It is a work that combines literary art, political vision, and a commitment to humanity and the world. ... Congratulations to our writer, who stands alongside great world leaders, writing from an infinitesimal corner of Colombia." Alfredo Vanín, Colombian writer
