 |
Introduction
Colombian writers have striven to explain 'la violencia'
- the violence in Colombian history and society. Here,
in interviews and extracts, they explore the roots of
this violence, and how it influences their writing.
Colombia's rich ecology has yielded three commodities,
each steeped in conflict. First from the Amazonian jungle
came rubber. Then came the bananas from the swampy coast
and finally cocaine from the Andean highlands.
Each of these has given rise to great literature:
La vorágine (The Vortex) by José
Eustacio Rivera, set in the jungle. Cien años de soledad
(One Hundred Years of Solitude) by Gabriel
García Márquez, set on the coast and La virgen
de los sicarios (Our Lady of the Assassins)
by Fernando Vallejo, set in Medellín in the Andes.
"We
have a very long tradition of the use of violence as the
only means to solve conflict. So many conflicts are solved
through the use of force and violence.
It has become institutionalised. In the case of Argentina,
Chile, Uruguay, Brazil in the 70s and 80s it was the state
using the violence. In Colombia, it's almost anybody and
everybody.
Colombia is the only country in the world that has a completely
new social science: violentology, it studies violence"
Professor Erna von der Walde, New
York University
"In Colombia the God of death rules."
Author Fernando Vallejo
"The question of 'La Violencia' in Colombia is hard to
answer. There have been so many studies of this. I think
it's a mixture of a very weak state and some sort of facility
about killing; an indifference about feeling for your
fellow citizens, but I haven't read a convincing explanation.
Some people say it began in the 1940s but it's still there.
It happens. It's in the street life in Bogota. I'm totally
puzzled, as a foreign observer, what is specific to Colombia
and not the rest of Latin America."
Professor Jason Wilson, University
College London
 Listen
to the radio programme:
Latin
American Words - Colombia.
BBC
Mundo |
BBC
Brasil
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
Rubber
|
Bananas |
Cocaine |
|
|
|
|
More
on... |
|
Colombia, in the Northwest top corner
of South America, wedged between the Caribbean and Pacific
coasts, is the fourth largest country on the continent.
Forty million people inhabit over a million square kilometers,
a land as big as central Europe.
|
|
