For a long time, I have been thinking about how best to talk about vio-lence in Colombia without falling prey to broad statements such as “Colombia is a violent country” or “violence rules Colombia.” These statements have contributed to the pervasiveness of Colombia’s cultural representations of violence globally, be those carried out by Colombians themselves or …
What comes across here as just a little anecdote is in fact part of a sphererelated to the“construction processes of world literature,”the forces that standbehind works that circulate on the global stage, the forces that cause a novel toleave its more immediate sphere of influence and to become a part of world litera-ture. What can be easily forgotten in the Western world–where García M…