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The intellectual's criminal discourse in Our Lady of the Assassins by Fernando Vallejo.

Article Excerpt
A new narrative genre has emerged on the Colombian literary scene, one comprised of novels portraying the violence that, like a shadow, accompanies the production and traffic of drugs. Some critics have baptized the genre as "sicaresca," while others prefer the term "narcorrealismo." (1) The common thread among these novels is the exploration of the violence committed by "sicarios," or killers for hire, who were initially recruited by drug traffickers as a weapon and shield against government judicial forces and who soon became common currency within reach of all who were able to purchase the physical elimination of other individuals. This new genre includes works such as La virgen de los sicarios (1994) by Fernando Vallejo, Rosario Tijeras (1999) by Jorge Franco, Hijos de la Nieve (2000) by Jose Libardo Porras, Sangre ajena (2000) by Arturo Alape, and Gustavo Alvarez Gardeazabal's Comandante Paraiso (2002), to name a few recent titles. In spite of the diverse topics and techniques explored in these works, what they do have in common is the examination of a disarticulated national community resulting from violence. (2)

Predictably, the "sicaresca" has elicited diverse responses from literary critics as well as the public. On one end of the spectrum, many have celebrated its realistic portrayal of a unique and feared sector of society, while other more conservative readers protest what they consider the exploitation of Colombia's dark side. Most Colombian authors have felt compelled to choose a position within the debate and therefore seem divided into two groups: those who see the representation of the violence generated by drug traffic as a legitimate subject matter for a writer in tune with the realities of Colombia, and those who outright reject this topic as a theme. (3) Leaving aside, for the moment, the discussion about the possible ethical and political consequences of the literary representation of violence, what is clear is that the "sicaresca" is a new and distinctive narrative discourse, directly engaged with the economic, political, and social reality of Colombia.

The novel that opened this critical Pandora's Box was Fernando Vallejo's controversial work Our Lady of the Assassins, which had an enormous impact not only in its native Colombia but also internationally. It has now been translated into numerous languages and was adapted to film by the director Barbert Schroeder with Vallejo writing the screenplay himself. (4) The outrage that marked the novel's reception in some sectors of Colombian society stemmed from the fact that its main character is an old gay man involved in love relationships with teenagers. Thus, the first-person narrator, a writer named Fernando, tells his story, which revolves around his romantic affairs with two young hit-men (or rather hitboys), Alexis and Wilmar, who live in the shantytowns that surround Medellin. The plot unfolds as these two sicarios die victims of the same cycle of violence that marked their lives: Wilmar kills Alexis to avenge the death of his brother and subsequently becomes a target for another hit-man. As a result, Fernando's love stories give way to a hyperbolic chronicle of daily life in contemporary Medellin.

The narrative begins when an aged Fernando returns after a long absence to what was once his hometown with the idea of spending his remaining years there. Instead of finding the city he left behind, Fernando is confronted with a fierce and chaotic landscape. As a result of this traumatic return, one of the notable features of the novel is the preponderance in Fernando's discourse of the description, analysis, and questioning of Colombia's national reality. This places Colombia in the indisputable position of protagonist. Accordingly, the centrality of the idea of national community acquires a unique purpose when constructed through the point of view of the main character, who constantly defines himself as a well-known grammarian and published author. The narrator's profession imprints on his self-characterization the label of intellectual. In the novel, Fernando's "testimony" is presented on the basis of a moral and educational superiority bestowed on him by his role as a learned person living among the anarchy of Medellin and, by extension, Colombia. However, it is precisely Fernando's unquestioning confidence in the status traditionally enjoyed by educated men in Latin American society that ironically emphasizes the irrelevance of the present day intellectual as an essential figure in the analysis and comprehension of the national reality. Moreover, it could be argued that the most prominent aspect of the novel is the implicit condemnation of the intellectual as an active participant in the creation and perpetuation of Colombia's fractured and conflictive society.

Considering the importance attributed to the learned status of the narrator in Vallejo's novel, what at first glance may appear to be a semantic play on the legal term known in Spanish as the "autor intelectual," (intellectual author), serves to establish the close relationship between discourse and crime in Our Lady of the Assassins. In the case of Colombia, as well as other countries whose laws originate from the Roman tradition, penal law distinguishes between the material author of a crime and the mastermind or "autor intelectual"--an individual who, without dirtying his...

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