Book excerpt: The Colombian Gothic in Cinema and Literature traces the aesthetic and political development of the Gothic genre in Colombia. Gabriel Eljaiek-Rodríguez shows how, in the hands of Colombian writers and filmmakers, Gothic tropes are taken to their extremes to reflect particularly Colombian issues, like the ongoing armed conflict in the country since the 1950s as various left wing guerillas, government factions and paramilitary groups escalated violence. In this context, collectives such as the “Cali group” challenge both the centrality of US and European Gothics as well as the centrality of Bogota-centered perspectives of Colombian politics and conflict. The book demonstrates how writers and filmmakers transform the European and American Gothic to show genealogical links between colonization, imperialism and domestic elites’ maintenance of social inequalities.