Bruchko: The Astonishing True Story of a 19-Year-Old American, His Capture by the Motilone Indians and His Adventures in Christianizing the Stone Age Tribe

Bruce Olson, the author of Bruchko, acts as both the protagonist and narrator of the story. Olson was born in Minnesota in 1941 to a family of Lutherans, but he soon left the Lutheran Church to become an Interdenominational Christian. When he was 19, he went to South America because of his belief that God wanted him to convert Indigenous populations, the story of which is recorded in Bruchko. Since his first visit, he has spent large portions of his life in South America, including a 30-year (on-and-off) stay with the Barí people. In 1988, he was given Colombian citizenship, but later that year was kidnapped by the National Liberation Army of Colombia (ELN), a Marxist-Leninist guerilla insurgency group. The ELN judged him in the revolutionary justice system and found him guilty of exploiting the Barí. He was condemned to death and spent nine months in captivity before being released. This release was largely due to the attention drawn to him because of a journalist called Maria Cristina Caballero who wrote a series of articles investigating his stay with the Barí. In these articles, she interviewed tribal leaders, who defended Olson and his legacy among the Barí.