ABSTRACT
This chapter delves into the global media frenzy that ensued from the kidnapping and eventual liberation of former Colombian Senator and presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt. As attested by cultural products such as the French comic book Ingrid de la jungle (2010), Betancourt’s captivity memoir Even Silence Has an End (2010), the television series about her rescue Operación Jaque (2010), and the film Operación E (2012), the Betancourt story illustrates the conditions that have led to a market-driven appropriation of the memoir (and memory) boom—and its ties to Latin American narratives of testimonio—that has dominated the global cultural field in recent years. By offering a contrast between the commodification of memory as an individual asset available for global consumption and the collective approach of governmental entities such as the Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica (National Center for Historical Memory), the chapter shows that the process of reconstructing the atrocities of conflict in contemporary Colombia is a heterogeneous project which is inevitably permeated by the rules of media coverage and market distribution.
