Breaking Free—Colombian Writers Get Personal

Andrea Montejo -- Críticas, 11/15/2007

Forty years after Gabriel García Márquez first seduced readers worldwide with tales of levitating grandmothers and magic butterflies, a new generation of Colombian authors is making its mark on the Spanish-language literary scene. Far from wanting to overthrow their literary father or constitute a new “generation,” these authors—some veterans, some newcomers—are out to create a voice of their own, and there’s nothing predictable about it.

Evelio Rosero

Over the past several decades, Colombian literature has undergone a process of renewal that is nothing short of outstanding. While some of the country’s more established authors, such as Laura Restrepo, Fernando Vallejo, and Evelio Rosero, have attained international recognition, a younger generation of authors has sprouted across the country, quickly garnering critical attention. These authors are breaking free from the stereotypes that have traditionally been associated with their country’s literature. As a result, the Colombian literary panorama couldn’t be more colorful.

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“Colombia has one of the most dynamic and diverse literary scenes in Latin America,” Nubia Macías, director of the Feria Internacion del Libro (FIL) Guadalajara, tells Críticas. “The country’s tumultuous history has generated an important cultural effervescence, and that’s exactly what we want to showcase at Guadalajara this year.” Sixty of the country’s most promising authors will be attending the fair in late November, she explains, and that number alone indicates the energy and diversity of Colombia’s literary landscape.

The end of violence

The country’s long-running civil war has deeply changed its social and political scene, forcing writers to find different ways of expressing the world they live in. While magic realism worked to depict the rural Colombia of García Márquez’s time, authors such as Vallejo and Jorge Franco gravitate to a more realist approach in order to depict the country’s gruesome—and increasingly urban—reality.

“Ever since authors like Vallejo and Franco appeared on the scene in the mid-Nineties, the international community has come to expect a certain kind of gritty realism from Colombian novelists,” explains Pilar Reyes, editorial director of Santillana Colombia. “While their books may have been the ones to get the most international attention,” says Reyes, “they are not the most emblematic sample of contemporary Colombian literature.”

Indeed, the violence that has for several decades shaken the country’s major cities is at the heart of such bestselling novels as Vallejo’s La Virgen de los Sicarios (Alfaguara, 1999; Our Lady of the Assassins, Serpent’s Tail, 2001) and Franco’s Rosario Tijeras (Siete Cuentos, 2004). Although very different in their stylistic approach, both portray the harsh reality of an underworld ridden with drug lords, merciless hit men, and the overabundance of easy money—all of which have come to be associated with Colombian literature. The latest batch of writers is well aware of their country’s reality, but they have refrained from portraying it in similar terms.

Juan Gabriel Vásquez

“For the authors of this more recent generation, Colombia’s violence is no longer at the forefront,” explains author Juan Gabriel Vásquez over the phone from his home in Barcelona. “The country’s violence may not have affected us in the same way it has affected the earlier generations, but it’s still there. The difference is in how we’ve chosen to depict it.”

In his novels, Vásquez tackles Colombia’s reality from a historical perspective. His first novel, Los informantes (“The Informants”; Alfaguara, 2004), explores the world of exiled Nazis in Bogotá during the 1940s, recapturing a forgotten page of Colombia’s history. Similarly, in Historia secreta de Costaguana (“The Secret History of Costaguana”; Alfaguara, 2007), Vásquez leaps back in time to the late 19th century to the time of “la Guerra de los Mil Días” (“The War of a Thousand Days”), one of the bloodiest and most turbulent moments in Colombia. By looking into its past, Vásquez explains, he is able to address issues that are very much alive in contemporary Colombia.

Meanwhile, for Rosero, author of Los Ejércitos (“The Military”; Tusquets, 2006) and winner of the Premio Tusquets in 2006, war is less about the events that lead to it than it is about the pain it causes. His novel, about a small town that gets slowly engulfed by the war around it, closely follows the emotional collapse of his characters. In a country where daily death tolls are announced on the nightly news and kidnappings are a fact of life, Rosero described to Críticas in a recent interview that he wanted “to tackle Colombian reality from a human perspective.”

Héctor Abad Faciolince

It is this same human perspective that Héctor Abad Faciolince is also looking for in his writing. “Because it’s easier to write about the bad than it is to write about the good, Colombian literature is plagued by hit men, bullies, drug-dealers, guerrillas, and paramilitaries,” says Abad Faciolince, whose latest book, El olvido que seremos (“The Oblivion We Become”; Planeta 2006), is a memoir about his father’s death. “That is why I try to write about the victims of those bullies. I want to show that in this country, there are more victims than assassins.”

An intimate exploration

At this year’s FIL Bogotá, a group of authors were selected as the Bogotá39—39 writers under 39 years of age that best represent contemporary Latin American literature. The Colombians Antonio García, John Jairo Junieles, Pilar Quintana, Ricardo Silva Romero, Antonio Ungar, and Vásquez emerged as the new faces of their country’s literature, and though they have little in common beyond their age, nationality, and a great concern for language, these six authors are challenging what has come to be expected of Colombian literature.

“These authors understand that literature plays out both in the story and in the writing,” Abad Faciolince, who was one of the three judges of Bogotá39, tells Críticas. For him, the most astounding thing about this group of newcomers is “the freedom with which they write.”

A quick overview of their collective oeuvre reveals that most of the Colombian authors of Bogotá39 have moved away from the urban realism of their predecessors toward more stylized accounts of their personal and intimate perceptions of the world. Quintana’s Coleccionistas de polvos raros (“Collectors of Odd Sex Encounters”; Norma, 2007) is perhaps the closest in execution to those of the urban realists of the Nineties. But for her, depicting Colombian reality is less important than searching for ways to represent a more personal space. “I have no interest in portraying the real world,” she recently explained at a conference at Bogota’s Universidad Externado. “I’d much rather invent an alternate reality, one where I can explore my own personal landscape.”

Coleccionistas is the story of La Flaca’s trials and tribulations in the underworld of Cali’s drug-trafficking cartels. Written as an interior monolog, the novel is more about the protagonist’s psychological and emotional meanderings than it is about the grittiness of the real world around her.

Antonio Ungar

Similarly, the starting point for Ungar’s most recent novel, Las orejas del lobo (“The Wolf’s Ears”; Ediciones B, 2006), is the subjectivity of his own existence. Written in the first person, and largely based on the author’s life, Orejas is a deep exploration of a young boy’s childhood and his resistance to entering the world of adults. The themes Ungar touches upon in his novels are less Colombian than universal even though they emanate from a very private space. Still, despite this tendency toward intimacy and the depiction of daily existence, the works of these authors never stray far from the ways in which their country’s violence has affected their surroundings.

Ricardo Silva Romero

While Silva Romero’s novels are more about the inner psychology of his characters than about the actual places they inhabit, a Bogota that is never quite safe permeates his work. The characters of Tic (Planeta, 2003) and Parece que va a llover (“Looks Like It’s Going to Rain”; Planeta, 2005), for example, go about their daily business with an uneasy feeling that something is about to burst.

Often criticized for depicting the Bogota of private schools and wealthy neighborhoods, he is unapologetic. “I write about what I know best: the neighborhoods I’ve lived in, the schools I’ve been to, the places I’m familiar with,” he explains. “It’s important for me to be as genuine as possible when I write, and the only way I can do that is by sticking to what I know.”

Looking Ahead

One of the most significant conclusions of Bogotá39 was that the current topography of Latin American fiction couldn’t be more diverse—and the Colombian authors of the group are no exception. While these young men and women share a certain taste for the subjective, an aversion for any sort of label, and a clear dedication to their craft, in one way or another their works are still haunted by the violence that vibrates the world around them. “The urgency of Colombia’s reality,” says Alejandra Balcázar, the editorial director of Dosmarías Press in Bogota, “forces these authors to ask themselves more transcendental questions about human nature than perhaps if they lived in another part of the world.”

Whether these authors will cross over to other markets and languages still remains to be seen. But for the time being, Colombia’s prominent place in the book world this year—through the programs of Bogotá World Book Capital, Bogotá39, and its presence at the FIL Guadalajara—has certainly helped boost their reputation.

A Year of Festivities

By all accounts, this has been a historical year for Colombian literature, a year of many celebrations. Not only was Bogotá, the country’s capital, appointed this year’s World Book Capital by UNESCO, but in an alignment of the stars worthy of some of the best pages of magic realism, 2007 also marked a triple anniversary for the country’s living legend: it was García Márquez’s 80th birthday, the 40th anniversary of the publication of Cien años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude), and the 25th anniversary of the master’s Nobel Prize.

In addition, this April Colombia hosted the fourth Congreso Internacional de la Lengua Española (“International Conference of the Spanish Language”) in Cartagena, the thirteenth Congreso de las Academias de la Lengua (“Conference of the Academies of the Spanish Language”), and the Feria International del Libro (FIL) Bogotá (Bogotá International Book Fair), where Bogotá World Book Capital in conjunction with the Hay Festival announced “Bogotá39,” a selection of promising writers that best represent today’s Latin American literature. (Bogotá39, the literary event, took place last August.) And as if all this weren’t enough, Colombia is the guest of honor at this year’s FIL Guadalajara.

Hightlighted Titles
El olvido que seremos. (The Oblivion We Become) Faciolince, Héctor Abad. (2007) Planeta. ISBN 978-958-42-1500-0	Rosario Tijeras. Franco, Jorge. (2004) Siete Cuentos. ISBN 978-9-87580-161-5
Coleccionistas de polvos raros. (Collectors of Odd Sex Encounters) Quintana, Pilar. (2007) Norma. ISBN 978-958-04-9869-8	Parece que va a llover. (It Looks Like It’s Going to Rain) Romero Silva, Ricardo. (2003) Planeta. ISBN 978-958-42-1125-5
Los Ejércitos. (The Military) Rosero, Evelio. (2006) Tusquets. ISBN 978-84-8310-391-3	Las orejas del lobo. (The Wolf’s Ears) Ungar, Antonio. (2006) Ediciones B. ISBN 958-97773-6-8
La virgen de los sicarios. (Our Lady of the Assassins) Vallejo, Fernando. (1999) Alfaguara. ISBN 978-9-58240-141-2	Historia secreta de Costaguana. (The Secret History of Costaguana) Vásquez, Juan Gabriel. (2007) Alfaguara. ISBN 978-9-58704-543-7
Los Informantes. (The Informers) Vásquez, Juan Gabriel. (2006) Alfaguara. ISBN 978-9-87040-585-6