The evolutionary trigger of colombian narco-literature in El ruido de las cosas al caer by Juan Gabriel Vázquez: between memory, change and parody

Abstract

Memory is useful for reading sicaresque novels, from Fernando Vallejo’s La Virgen de los sicarios (1994) to recent texts such as Juan Gabriel Vásquez’ El ruido de las cosas al caer (2011). Vasquez’ novel is structured on a base of memory and is shaped by the generational writing of post-Pablo Escobar trauma. This paper reviews El ruido de las cosas al caer in line with the literary evolution and mutation of Colombian narco-literature genre in the 21st century. Memory points to such a mutation, not only as a memory of national trauma, but also as an internal memory of the subgenre. In this way, this article interprets Vásquez’ text and proposes an oscillation between a fiction of national traumatic memory and a new parodical narco-literature, along the lines of an Antoquian sicaresque literature re-translated in the current century.