Cuando llovió dinero en Macondo: Literatura y narcotráfico en Colombia y México

Abstract

This study deals with the representation of drug trafficking in six narrative texts from Colombia and Mexico. Narco-narratives examine the social structures that drug trafficking has brought to Latin American society, which I refer to collectively as the culture of “easy money”. These texts are the product of a global phenomenon and highlight the tensions within neo-liberalism, globalization and the war on drugs. The first chapter explores the changes and effects that drug trafficking creates in different social groups, especially among intellectuals in two Colombian novels, La Virgen de los sicarios (Fernando Vallejo, 1994) and Cartas cruzadas (Darío Jaramillo Agudelo, 1995). Chapter two shows how the culture of easy money transforms the lives of the novels' characters in the Colombian text Hijos de la nieve (José Libardo Porras, 2000). Narcoculture,as promoted by the culture of “easy money”, has transformed the way that society views traditional values such as labor and education; it creates a new scale of value in which consumerism directs the lives of a growing number of individuals. Chapter three examine the ways that popular corrido and oral traditions employ specific narrative codes to represent the influence of drug trafficking in Northern México in two Mexican texts, Juan Justino Judicial (Gerardo Cornejo, 1996) and “La parte de Chuy Salcido” (Elmer Mendoza, 1991). The final chapter underscores how the Mexican novel The gringo connection (Armando Ayala Anguiano, 2000) stakes out ideological positions that include legalization and criminalization, within a broader cultural context. This study works with concepts such as agency, heteroglossia and characterization to show how the culture of “easy money” transformed social structures and the ways that narco-narratives represent changes in the subjectivity of a country's people. At the same time that I make reference to national frameworks, I also emphasize that a global prospective is needed to understand the transnational connections and trends represented in narco-narratives. Drug trafficking is a phenomenon that takes advantage of market movements and is inscribed within the dynamics of a globalized society. My study points out how narco-narratives permeate the culture and society of countries around the world. Although narco-narratives include a multitude of texts, they all highlight the consequences of failed government policies and the end of social utopias in Latin America. Through the analysis of this set of texts, my study contributes to our understanding of the ways that narco-narratives interpellate characters, authors and readers to explore ethical positions vis-à-vis drug trafficking and its effects in Colombian and Mexican cultures.