An anthology 'In the Beginning There Was the Sea' in Azerbaijani has been published, as part of a common initiative between the Translation Centre under the Cabinet of Ministers (AzTC) and the Embassy of Columbia to Azerbaijan. The book includes Colombian poems of various years. The anthology covers poems written by Castillo y Guevara Francisca Josefa del, one of Colombia’s mystic and spiritual writers, José Rafael de Pombo y Rebolledo, one of the great poets of Colombia, and the best exponent of romanticism in the country, José Asunción Silva who is considered one of the founders of Spanish–American Modernism, León de Greiff, one of the founders of a literary and artistic group established in the XX century, Porfirio Barba-Jacob, Meira Delmar, Giovanni Quessep, Fernando Charry Lara, and Aurelio Arthur. as well as samples of poetry by local Hindu groups inhabiting the Caribbean,  the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, an isolated mountain range on the Caribbean coast.

The anthology of Columbian poetry became available to Azerbaijani readers for the first time. Each of the poems in the book is given in two languages: Azerbaijani and Spanish. 

A literal translation for the Azerbaijani poet and fiction translator Alisamid Kür was provided by Emin Alasgarov. 

The project was launched in June 2015.