Abstract

My dissertation examines how urban violence and its inscription in social imaginaries have shaped Latin American narrative production over the past fifty years. Specifically, I analyze three recent novels from Colombia and two from Brazil: Fernando Vallejo's La Virgen de los Sicarios (1994); Jorge Franco Ramos' Rosario Tijeras (1999); Mario Mendoza's Satanás (2002); Rubem Fonseca's Feliz Ano Novo (1975); and Patricia Melo's Inferno (2000). I describe two types of violence represented in these literary texts. The first type is a form of criminal violence associated (located) with specific urban social groups: marginal people from the lower class who become criminals and resort to crime (drug trafficking and organized crime). This representation of violence is portrayed in these novels as a spectacle. The second type of violence is depicted on a social and psychological but not criminal level that is closely related to the idea of omnipresent danger and ethical crisis. It is conceived not only as an anomaly of modern societies but also as a pathological phenomenon. Interdisciplinary in nature, my dissertation lies at the intersection of literary criticism and cultural studies.