Born y Quieto

NON-FICTION. PLANETA, 2023 . 408 PAGES

The ransom paid to end the kidnapping of Jorge and Juan Born is still the highest ever recorded: in exchange for the safe return of the heirs, Bunge y Born paid sixty million dollars to the Peronist Montonero guerrilla group in 1975.
Almost forty years later, in 2014, Jorge Born shared a detailed account of his long time in captivity in a small town jail with the journalist María O'Donnell. His testimony resulted in the publication of the book Born, a bestseller in 2015.
Following its release, other people who were involved in the events felt the need to speak. They included the children of José María Menéndez who was in charge of negotiating the release of the heirs to the large Latin American holding company: their father had recorded all of his telephone conversations. The transcriptions are a unique document: no similar documentary evidence exists of the main method the guerrillas used to finance their armed struggle in the 1970s.
From this and other sources, the journalist returned to the trail of the massive ransom, which went cold during the dictatorship. Born y Quieto is the result of that research; an expanded, enriched version that reveals the identities of the protagonists and how, thanks to the serenity that kept him alive in a small cell for nine months, Born III managed to negotiate his own release and ended up deciding on the ransom sum with his father.
Drawing on these rich historical sources, O'Donnell presents a masterful political thriller, a gripping drama that scarred those involved for the rest of their lives.