Representations of the city in the narrative of Fernando Vallejo

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Notes

I wish to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Board for their funding which enabled the research for and writing of this article.

All translations are mine.

‘Sicario’ means ‘contract killer’ and comes from the latin sicarius. It was applied in Colombia to adolescent boys (as young as 13 or 14 years old) from underprivileged urban ‘comunas’ or ‘barriadas’ who were paid vast amounts of money by narco‐terrorists for the elimination of public figures associated with a pro‐extradition lobby on punishment for drug trafficking. After the assassination of these drug terrorists, these sicarios began, as Vallejo tells us, to operate as ‘free enterprise’ (‘libre empresa’), robbing and killing in vast numbers in the struggle for power over a now devastated public space.

The fictional ‘Margarito Ledesma’ who writes the cover blurb for each of the first editions of El río del tiempo. These are also the words of the old ‘Vallejo’ in La rambla paralela, Vallejo's last novel, in which the narrative voice consists of three ‘Fernando Vallejos’ commenting on one another.