The Intricate Author

Through her writing, Silvana Paternostro wishes to reveal how difficult her life is as she struggles with an identity crisis and investigates the turmoil of her homeland. Paternostro writes with an informal diction, as she makes the reader feel familiar with her and, therefore, sympathize with her intricate life. The content of the book seeks to inform a reader who is concerned with world events and wants to analyze them, so Paternostro approaches that by having an informal diction that makes it interesting for the reader. As opposed to writing an academic book, as the journalist she is, she informs the reader through an easy going and amusing memoir. The plot of her memoir has anecdotes of her life, showing how the armed conflict of Colombia affected her and, in the author's opinion, made it her Colombian War.
Paternostro's writing, for that purpose, shows how fascinating yet understandable her life apparently is. She describer her afternoon jogging as going running "down memory lane." This evidently cliché phrase seeks to make the reader familiar with her, with an informal and familiar register. As she runs down Riogrande, wishing to rediscover the neighborhood she used to live in, Paternostro connects with the reader through as she makes questions. Through her questions, the reader is able to understand the intricacy of her life.
She says, "I wonder who keeps it so white now that they are in Miami?"(pg. 109). In another part Paternostro says, "'Mami, please,' I would ask every day" (pg. 111). She also uses quotation from things she has said to show the way she is.
Overall, Paternostro uses her memoir to talk about her self as she informs the reader about the armed conflict in Colombia. The author wants to explain the difficulties of being an expat Colombian that feels  like an American but isn't really one, as she analyzes Colombia. Her run "down memory lane" shows how she uses her anecdotes do describe her homeland and the problems it is going through. With her informal and slightly familiar diction, she is able to attract a reader who wants to understand Colombia through a nonacademic way.