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This dissertation examines the emergence and consolidation of a textual corpus known as the sicaresca novel, a new genre that proliferated in Colombia in the 1990s. These novels emerged from the violence of the drug wars, and are named after the sicarios, young paid assassins recruited by drug traffickers. The main hypothesis claims that the sicaresca novel is a new literary genre that opens with Our Lady of the Assassins by Fernando Vallejo, and is consolidated by Morir con Papá by Óscar Collazos, Rosario Tijeras by Jorge Franco, and Sangre ajena by Arturo Alape. This work builds on discourse analysis and theorizes some of the characteristics of the sicaresca novel that create a distinctive narrative discourse, directly engaged with the political, economic, and social reality of Colombia. The first chapter is devoted to the effect of drug-trafficking on the rise of a new subculture where the sicario’s attitudes and beliefs are embedded, and relates the sicaresca to other narratives about drug-trafficking. The second chapter studies specific narrative forms in Our Lady of the Assassins that will be copied, altered or subverted by the subsequent novels, such as the use of a street vernacular known as parlache, and other devices borrowed from oral tradition. The third chapter studies fictional configurations of the sicario archetype in relation to the Bildungsroman, the sentimental novel and the picaresca novel. This section reveals how each archetype denaturalizes presumed natural concepts about the sicario figure, validated by official discourses. The fourth chapter examines the relation between the sicaresca novel and mass media. It questions the role of the cultural critic in the reception of the sicaresca novel as a whole, and analyzes how the dialogue between literary and cinematic discourse is established for Our Lady of the Assassins and Rosario Tijeras and their adaptations to film The sicaresca novel is built on the transformation of narrative devices used by testimonial writings, historical accounts and sensationalist press related to drugtrafficking and its young assassins. All the works studied represent a critique of the social, economic and cultural changes that conditioned the sicario’s appearance during the last decades.

My dissertation examines three novels by Colombian author Fernando Vallejo: La virgen de los sicarios (1994), El desbarrancadero (2001), and La rambla paralela (2002). Vallejo is considered by many to be the most controversial Latin American novelist of our time. His literary work is filled with harsh criticism towards key pillars of civilization, from religion and democracy to motherhood, making him a symbol of the "politically incorrect" in contemporary Latin American narrative. This dissertation proves that there is much more to Vallejo's work than the controversy it generates, which has been the focus of much of the literary criticism on him. I show that the discourse of Vallejo's narrator focuses on criticism and nostalgia as a way of dealing with the crisis of modernity in contemporary Colombia. This allows me to establish the origin of the author's critical view of the world in his narrative work: a deep sense of nostalgia for the values of modernity in the midst of the chaos of contemporary life in Colombia, as well as a profound feeling of frustration upon the discovery that they might have actually existed only in the realm of discourse. My research also explores the reasons behind the radical turn in the narrator's view of the world that is evidenced in Vallejo's latter works, as his disillusionment eradicates his belief in criticism and replaces it with a state of nihilism that can only lead to death. Ultimately, my dissertation establishes how Vallejo's narrative reaches its limits by destroying the very arguments on which it once relied.

This dissertation studies selected poems written between 1950 and 1975 by Octavio Paz and Rosario Castellanos, two major Mexican writers of the twentieth century. Paz is considered one of the leading figures of Mexican literature, while Castellanos gained prominence in her homeland as a feminist figure. Using close reading as the predominant approach, this study investigates the complex issues of love and sexuality from the perspective of the poetical voice. It also emphasizes the manner in which the boundaries produced by love and sexuality underscore certain ambiguities. Indeed, these two poets search for identity and happiness in various ways, while questioning sincerity and investigating true love, a love concerned with heart and parity. In a very personal way, both authors use recurrent metaphors and comparisons about love and sexuality that combine traditional images of the Occident with images from Mexico. In their attempts to offer definitions of love and sexuality, Paz and Castellanos inevitably incorporate diverse influences into traditional stereotypes, and in doing so, place Mexican poetry within a broader context. At the same time, this dissertation addresses the differences between these two poets. On the one hand, Paz exalts love and sexuality as a constructive characteristic of the human being in an almost sacred quest, thereby demonstrating his awareness of literary tradition and humanistic belief in poetry. Concurrently, on the other hand, Castellanos is relentless in her search for love and acceptance by men, thus subjecting herself to the manipulation of a patriarchal society, which sought to reaffirm the immobility of the woman by demanding that she conforms to a male-dominated literary canon. Castellanos’s voice is that of a proud yet pleading, lamenting, rejected lover, although the register of her poetic voice transcends gender barriers, incorporates the canon, and speaks as a fully self-validating subject. Paz sees the pleasures in, while Castellanos measures the risks and dangers at stake with the encounter of the other.

Until recently, Mexican identity at Mexico’s northern border had been viewed as a marginal manifestation of Mexican culture. This characterization resulted from centrist ideologies that were rooted in a homogeneous concept of mexicanness. Furthermore, the belief that the border was a peripheral culture was influenced by the border’s proximity to the United States. Over time, border identity has evolved to one which affirms and defines itself through its diversity. Such a concept has been captured in a view of the Mexican nation that has been increasingly contested from different vantage points which are both convergent and divergent. This dissertation analyzes the formation of Mexico’s northern border identity from two perspectives: that of writers from Mexico’s northern border and that of writers from Mexico’s presumed center, Mexico City. The works analyzed here by writers from México’s Northern Border consist of Luis Humberto Crosthwaite’s El gran pretender (1994) Victor Espinoza Valle’s Don Crispín (1995) Federico Campbell’s Todo lo de las focas (1990) Ricardo Aguilar- Melantzón’s Que es un soplo la vida (2003) and Norma Elia Cantú’s Canícula (1995). This representative body of narrative works is characterized by an appropriation and resignification of its multiple influences and geographical location. Unlike the cultural fluidity that characterizes the writers from the northern border; many intellectuals from Mexico City view the nation as a homogenous whole. Yet, this tradition is being challenged in light of the growing influence of the border communities. This change in perception is certainly evident in the writers from Mexico City examined in this dissertation who question the premise of a single center. This new cultural pluralism characterizes in Ignacio Solares’ Columbus (1995) Elena Poniatowska’s Las mil y una (2000) Carlos Monsiváis’ “La frontera y el centro:Encuentro de mitologías” (1998) and Carlos Fuentes La frontera de cristal (1995). The present study examines the extent to which these works challenge the established social and literary institutions. In other words, we argue that they deconstruct the notion of center versus periphery, and in the process, they effectively decenter the traditional notion of a homogenous Mexican nation. The authors studied here illustrate a public discourse that depicts many of the debates that seek to define Mexico’s cultural identity—a discourse which clearly shows the formation of a contested heterogeneous culture. Clearly, border identities are an ongoing negotiation of their multiple influences. In that regard, the present study seeks to add to the understanding of those processes of transculturation that place emphasis on border identity as a fluid and multiple manifestation of Mexican culture. In addition, this dissertation seeks to contribute to further dialogue about the ways in which process of identity construction and appropriation at Mexico’s Northern Border are re-signifying Mexico’s national imaginary.

Thesis (D.M.A.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 227-234).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Toronto, 2004. / Adviser: Alissa Trotz.

Thesis (D.M.A.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2008. / Title from title screen (site viewed Mar. 5, 2009). PDF text: vii, 131 p. ; 1 Mb. UMI publication number: AAT 3336689. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche formats.

Habilitationsschrift--Mainz. / Bibliography: p. [222]-231.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1939. / "Leal conselheiro is the oldest Portuguese manuscript of the Bibliothèque nationale at Paris. It is catalogued as Portuguese ms. no. 5"--Introd. "Abbreviations and list of works cited": p. ix-xi.