The Role of Literature in Fernando Molano’S Trilogy: How Triple

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THE ROLE OF LITERATURE IN FERNANDO MOLANO’S TRILOGY: HOW TRIPLE

SOCIAL REJECTION (POVERTY, HOMOSEXUALITY AND HIV/AIDS) AFFECTS THE

MARGINALIZED GAY WRITER

Nayid Jesus Contreras

B.A., The University of British Columbia, 2017

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF

THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF ARTS

THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES

(Hispanic Studies)

THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

(Vancouver)

August 2019

The Role of Literature in Fernando Molano’s Trilogy: How Triple Social Rejection (Poverty,

Homosexuality and HIV/AIDS) Affects the Marginalized Gay Writer

submitted by Nayid Jesus Contreras in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Hispanic Studies

Examining Committee:

Jon Beasley-Murray Supervisor

Alessandra Santos Supervisory Committee Member

Anna Casas Aguilar Supervisory Committee Member

Additional Examiner

Abstract

The literary work of Fernando Molano Vargas was the result of creativity and talent conceived under discriminatory circumstances surrounding poverty, homosexuality, and HIV/AIDS. This thesis asks what drives a person like Molano, who is triply marginalized, to dedicate himself to writing? I argue that Molano, an openly homosexual author, makes of literature his personal instrument of salvation: a matter of life and death. The present work is the first sustained analysis, at least in English, devoted to Molano’s trilogy, guided by theoretical approaches in queer theory such as those of Lee Edelman’s Homographesis (2016) and No Future (2004), and Kathryn

Stockton’s The Queer Child (2009). This thesis is divided into three chapters. The first is on the novel Un beso de Dick (1992) and deals with themes of homosexual desire, love, life, and death. I evaluate Molano’s exploration of homosexuality in relation to the naive adolescent’s first love, sexuality, and the homoerotic desire within the masculine environments of sports, where gay men are usually forced to hide their sexuality to avoid homophobia. The second chapter is on the posthumously published novel Vista desde una acera (2012), where I consider themes of poverty, relationships, discrimination, and HIV/AIDS. Here, I interpret Molano’s personal experiences with poverty, gender roles, and traditional family values. I contend that Molano sees in literature an opportunity to process and reflect upon his childhood traumas. The third chapter is on Todas mis cosas en tus bolsillos (1997), Molano’s book of poetry. Here, I explore Molano’s development of love, sexual pleasure, BDSM, homoeroticism, and homosexual relationships and point out how

Molano’s poetic voice changes, highlighting a defining characteristic of his poetry—defiance — where intimate life details are shared. The narrator is a voyeuristic, sexually active rebel and literary connoisseur, who aims to capture the attention of a curious reader.

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Resumen

La obra literaria de Fernando Molano Vargas fue el producto de su creatividad y talento concebidos en circunstancias discriminatorias en torno a la pobreza, la homosexualidad y el VIH/SIDA. El objetivo principal de esta tesis fue responder a la pregunta, ¿qué impulsa a una persona como

Molano, quien fuera triplemente marginado, a dedicarse a escribir? Sostengo que Molano, un autor abiertamente homosexual, hace de la literatura su instrumento personal de salvación: una cuestión de vida o muerte. El presente trabajo es el primer análisis, en inglés, dedicado al estudio de la obra de Molano Un beso de Dick (1992), Todas las cosas en tus bolsillos (1997) y Vista desde una acera (2012), guiados por enfoques teóricos de la literatura queer como Homographesis (2016) y

No Future (2004) de Lee Edelman, y también The Queer Child de Kathryn Stockton (2009). Esta tesis está dividida en tres capítulos. El primero es sobre Un beso de Dick y trata temas como el amor, el deseo homosexual, la vida y la muerte. Ahí evalúo la exploración que hace Molano sobre la homosexualidad con relación al primer amor, la sexualidad y el deseo homoerótico del adolescente ingenuo en entornos masculinos como los deportes donde los hombres homosexuales generalmente se ven obligados a ocultar su sexualidad para evitar la homofobia. El segundo capítulo es sobre la novela Vista desde una acera (2012), publicada póstumamente, donde considero temas de pobreza, relaciones, discriminación y VIH/SIDA. Aquí interpreto las experiencias personales de Molano con la pobreza, los roles de género y los valores familiares.

Sostengo que Molano ve en la literatura una oportunidad para procesar y reflexionar sobre sus traumas infantiles. El tercer capítulo es sobre Todas las cosas en tus bolsillos (1997), el libro de poemas de Molano. Aquí exploro el desarrollo del amor, el placer sexual, el BDSM, el homoerotismo y las relaciones homosexuales. Señalo como cambia la voz poética de Molano, resaltando una característica definitoria de su poesía—el desafío—donde se comparten detalles

íntimos su vida. El narrador es un voyerista, sexualmente activo y conocedor literario, cuyo objetivo es capturar la atención de un lector curioso.

Lay Summary

This thesis’s main goal is to decipher the importance of literature within Fernando Molano’s literary cosmology: Un beso de Dick (“A Kiss by Dick,” 1992), Todas mis cosas en tus bolsillos

(“All My Things in Your Pockets,” 1997), and Vista desde una acera (“View From a Sidewalk,”

2012). For Molano, literature is a matter of life and death, a matter of survival. Writing becomes a form of salvation where he and his lover can find refuge from a world of misery and suffering from the triple marginalization (poverty, homosexuality, and HIV/AIDS) that he was subjected to, and puts a mirror up in front of society in relation to themes of homoerotic desire, homosexuality, and discrimination. The environment in Colombia of the 80s and 90s was hostile in many ways, not least for writers such as Molano who received little support from his family or traditional literary institutions.

Preface

This thesis is the original, unpublished, and independent work of its author, Nayid J. Contreras.

All of the translations of Molano’s texts, Un beso de Dick, Vista desde una acera, and Todas mis cosas en tus bolsillos, from Spanish into English, were made by the author, Nayid J. Contreras.

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Table of Contents

Abstract ...... iii

Resumen ...... iv

Lay Summary ...... vi

Preface...... vii

Table of Contents ...... viii

Acknowledgments...... x

Dedication ...... xi

Introduction ...... 1

Chapter 1: Love, Homoerotic Desire, and the Relationship Between Life and Death in “A Kiss by Dick” ...... 13

1.1 Love, Homosexuality and Sexual Desire ...... 14

1.2 Literature, Poetry, and Homoeroticism ...... 23

1.3 Life, Death, and Grieving ...... 30

Chapter 2: The Mark of Poverty, Homosexuality, and Sickness in “View From a Sidewalk” .... 41

2.1 Poverty and Innocence ...... 45

2.2 Homosexual Identity and Childhood Innocence ...... 56

2.3 A Dedicatory to Diego: Lover, Muse, and Companion ...... 60

Chapter 3: Poetry as a Testimonial Agent of Sexual Desire and Personal Anxiety Toward Illness and Death in “All My Things in Your Pockets” ...... 69

3.1 The Voyeuristic Poet: Writing Yourself into the Story ...... 73

3.2 Poetry as a Confessional Agent for Solitude and Sexual Fantasy ...... 79

3.3 Poetry and Death ...... 88

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Conclusion ...... 96

Bibliography ...... 104

Acknowledgments

I appreciate the unconditional support, the patience and the dedication to making this thesis worthy to be presented because, without my supervisor’s encouragement and guidance, it would not have been possible. For this reason, I thank my professor and mentor, Jon Beasley-Murray. I also thank the other members of my thesis committee, Alessandra Santos and Anna Casas Aguilar, for their tireless support, for all the advice and for always encouraging me in this process called writing.

Without your motivation and backing, I would have been lost. In the same way, I thank each and every one of my professors at the University of British Columbia who have taught me, guided me and inspired me to follow my dreams in academia: thank you!

I would like to thank my colleagues in French, Hispanic and Italian Studies for your friendship. Especially, I owe an enormous thanks to Joyce Lubert and Xana Menéndez Prendes— the Dalí group—for their permanent support during this gratifying process, for your help with each chapter revision, in short, for your friendship. Without you, all these years of academic studies would have been less fun and rewarding. I also would like to thank my classmate and friend,

Yasaman Rafieri, for her unconditional support in this process and for her friendship.

Particularly, I express my gratitude to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research

Council of Canada (SSHRC) for their generous financial support that made this thesis possible.

Notably, I thank my mother Ana Santiago, my sister, Maritza Contreras, and my family at large for always giving me their support and unconditional love. Finally, I thank my partner,

Rudy L. Yagos, for his love, support, and for being my number one cheerleader. Life makes much more sense if you are in it and by my side.

Dedication

A Fernando Molano Vargas:

Que su magistral forma de utilizar las palabras para exacerbar sentimientos, su ferviente pasión por la vida y por todo lo maravilloso que nos rodea, y su imperturbable devoción en el amor y la escritura, sean mi compás inspiracional en mi futura carrera académica, del mismo modo que lo fue para este increíble escritor colombiano.

—Miren, muchachos: leer…, además de enriquecer las ideas, como siempre hemos dicho aquí..., más que eso es un ejercicio de vida; si la descubren, verán que puede ser una experiencia tan vital como una caricia, o como una despedida… Por los libros podemos conocer…, y compartir, el mundo que está más allá de la punta de nuestros dedos: yo no conozco Paris, pero he leído a Víctor Hugo, y he leído a Baudelaire y ya Paris está en mi corazón; cuando algún día la visite, la voy a saludar como una vieja amiga, y cuando camine por sus calles, sentiré que regreso a las calles donde jugaba siendo niña…; porque en los libros no solo he visitado otros lugares; también he visitado mis sueños…

—Fernando Molano Vargas, Un beso de Dick

Toma todas mis cosas: mi viejo placer de niño y mis pasiones bobas este algo que ahora soy y este mi nombre -Toma sobre todo mi corazón y guárdalas bien en tus bolsillos Porque aún soy vulnerable y tratarán de aniquilarlas: no dejes que te las quiten.

—Fernando Molano Vargas, Todas mis cosas en tus bolsillos

Y Adrián me dice que es cierto como si se pusiera decepcionado de esta vida. Pero ahora le brillan los ojos como a él le brillan, y me dice que la literatura no tiene la culpa y que tal vez no les sirva a los hombres, pero quizás pueda servirle a uno que otro hombre y ellos harían que valiera la pena la cosa; como en Sodoma y Gomorra, me dice: cuatro o cinco hombres buenos bastarían para salvar una porquería de mundo. Y entonces yo me digo que este muchacho me encanta: porque es de esos capaces de hacer pelechar una flor en el corazón de un suicida. Y, como soy cursi, no resisto las ganas y le digo que por eso lo amo.

—Fernando Molano Vargas, Vista desde una acera

Introduction

For Fernando Molano Vargas (1961-1998), literature was a matter of life and death, a matter of survival. In his work, literature becomes a form of salvation where he and his lover can find refuge from a world of misery and suffering. Literature has multiple encompassing approaches which allow the author to explore relevant issues and situations concerning the triple marginalization

(poverty, homosexuality, and HIV/AIDS) to which he was subject and puts a mirror up in front of society concerning themes of homoerotic desire, homosexuality, and discrimination. To one extent or another, these elements affected and inspired Molano, who, against all the odds, became a symbol of perseverance for the LGBTQ community in Colombia, that saw in him as a creative and talented individual whose work deserved to be visible, even if recognition mostly came after his death. Molano represents the marginalized writer, a fighter against inequality and unkindness, a human being who dedicated his life to writing, going against tradition, society, and even his own family. Molano’s discourse is in solidarity with the underrepresented homosexual man and finds inspiration in his own life in that most of his work is autobiographical. It resulted in two novels and a book of poems, works that testify to the imagination and creativity of its author.

Writing, and especially literature, grants Molano some agency over his life experiences and control over his narrative and the way he wants to people to remember him. Molano also sees writing as a mnemonic device where he can deconstruct, analyze, and revise traumatic struggles with sexual abuse, lost innocence, and family violence. Fame and recognition were never Molano’s primary goals, even though he achieved some while he was still alive. More importantly, for

Molano literature enabled a cathartic process in which he could reflect on the hardships of being homosexual while constructing elaborate characters, situations, and stories to connect with an audience who feel moved by the language Molano uses. What better way to understand his own

1 and society’s issues with homosexuality than through writing? Molano rediscovers how past experiences have impacted him as an adult gay man, and constructs stories that give queer people representation and a foundation to navigate the heteronormative world. By writing about such experiences, Molano formulates an authentic and unpretentious characterization of what it means to be homosexual in Colombia. He opens the reader to face, within the literary world, feelings, and emotions concerning homoerotic sexual desire, pain and pleasure, life and death.

The environment in Colombia of the 80s and 90s was hostile in many ways, not least for writers such as Molano who received little support or encouragement from his family or traditional literary institutions. Knowing that his vocation was to become a writer and to study literature at the university level—a situation that would not guarantee him to get out of poverty—Molano insists on going against tradition—dedicating himself to what he loves most and becomes a literary creator and connoisseur of stories and poetry. Molano has left us with three works: the novel, Un beso de Dick (1992) (“A Kiss by Dick”); a collection of poems, Todas mis cosas en tus bolsillos

(1997) (“All My Things in Your Pockets”), which he managed to see published only a few months before his death; and his posthumous novel, Vista desde una acera (2012) (“View From a

Sidewalk”), a manuscript published only after it was lost for almost fifteen years among the archives of Bogota’s Luis Ángel Arango library.

Molano’s work is not only an exercise of individual expression but also a cohesive trilogy that echoes characters, events, and texts from the Western tradition that complement and converse with one another. Molano’s work allows for two readings. On the one hand, there is a Molano who provides for the appearance of different characters’ voices and underlines the autobiographical parallels with the author's own life. Molano’s voice testifies to his personal experience in maintaining his dignity while surviving the social intolerance, homophobia, and unkindness that

2 surrounded him. On the other hand, there is a Molano who engages on a literary plane where creative writing is more than just a utopian mental exercise. Writing becomes for Molano a space for reflection on philosophical questions about the pursuit of happiness, the preservation of innocence, the exploration of sexuality and desire, the normalization of same-sex love, the responsibility of carrying for the beloved sick friend, and finally, the relationship with death and mourning.

Writing about Molano’s life presents its issues because he was not widely famous or nationally acclaimed. The only biographical references about his life come from his novels and what some people who knew him have to say, such as Héctor Abad Faciolince who writes in a preface to Un beso de Dick:

I met Fernando Molano in writing [...] when I read the manuscript of his first novel, “A

Kiss by Dick,” and I was a jury of the Novel Competition organized by the Chamber of

Commerce of Medellín in 1992. Later I also met him in person, when a shy and happy

young man received the award, and I saw him again sporadically in his rare visits to

Medellin. He was sick, but nothing in him showed that he was ill. He retained the vigor

and joy of his years, the strength of a poor boy grown in Chapinero [a notorious gay middle-

class neighborhood in Bogota] and capable of throwing a fridge on his back. He was good-

looking and delicate, the son of a dead mechanic, who grew up in a family full of quarrels

that did not accept well that their son had ended up being a faggot and a poet. (“Retrato del

poeta enfermo” 9)

From this short introductory note, we can see that the encounter between Molano and Faciolince happened because of writing. More precisely, because of an organized novel writing competition, where one was the aspiring novice writer and the other was the experienced jury. Later, when

Faciolince had the chance to get to know Molano better, he noted in him great qualities and perceived some underlined personal struggles.

However, the one person who has been concerned to write a complete biography, or one that is at least more complete than the others, is Marieth Helena Serrato-Castro. In her master’s thesis, “Fernando Molano Vargas: A Window on Homoerotic Literature” (2016), Serrato traces the life of the writer and Diego, his lover. Serrato’s narration is nourished by her friendship with

Molano, as they were classmates at the National Pedagogical University in Bogotá. Serrato notes that, “Fernando Molano was born in July 1961 in Bogotá. [And that] He was the son of working parents from whom he inherited the profession of surviving in life by performing any trade; the family was made up of six more children, two girls, and four boys” (9).1 Serrato also comments that when she met Molano, he worked with his father in a workshop winding up and repairing car engines. With regards to education, Serrato tells us that Molano went to multiple public schools, among them the Jorge Eliécer Gaitán district school located in the Modelo neighbourhood.

From a personal perspective, Marieth Serrato-Castro describes Molano during the time she studied with him at the National Pedagogical University:

In 1985 we met Fernando Molano. […] We started our studies. We longed to know about

poets, books, immerse ourselves in the literary universe, dive into the seventh art of cinema,

and we even dreamed of being writers. Becoming a teacher was a possibility, or maybe the

pretext, to achieve our goals. Both Fernando and Diego were talented; they had the look of

those who want, literally, to eat the world, but they had to face poverty every day as their

biggest obstacle. Without being miserable, poverty often made itself felt; we were always

1 “Fernando Molano nació en julio de 1961 en Bogotá. Era hijo de padres trabajadores de quienes heredó la profesión de sobrevivir en la vida con cualquier oficio; la familia se conformaba por seis hijos más, dos mujeres y cuatro hombres.” (9)

in trouble to get transportation, photocopies, or a lunch ticket, which cost only one hundred

pesos. (8)2

Even during his university years, Molano’s lack of monetary resources made his life much more difficult when compared to other students like Serrato, because he felt responsible for providing, not only for himself but also for his classmate and lover, Diego. Most of Molano’s literary work was inspired by Diego, who became his muse and who also died from AIDS a decade before

Molano’s encounter with death.

This thesis is the first sustained analysis, at least in English, dedicated to a reading of

Molano’s entire work. Molano has drawn the attention of some literary critics. For instance, Daniel

Giraldo’s dissertation (“Entre Líneas: Literatura marica colombiana,” 2016) on gay Colombian writers includes a chapter on Molano’s text entitled “¿Dónde está lo queer?: La obra de Fernando

Molano” (266-292). Giraldo identifies a distinctive way of representing the homosexual character within Molano’s narrative, where the author brakes with homosexual stereotypes. According to

Giraldo, Molano's maricas (faggots) do not use makeup, do not sneak into gay bars, do not sing romantic songs, and do not become hairdressers. Molano does all these, asserts Giraldo, without overemphasizing their masculinity (260). However, I reject the latter premise in the case of Un beso de Dick protagonist’s Felipe and Leonardo where they display hypermasculinity qualities, concerning their desire to be accepted by their peers and belong with the world of sports. Not to mention Felipe’s disregard with writing on diaries as a matter of mariconeria (queerness).

2 “En 1985 conocimos a Fernando Molano. […] Iniciamos nuestros estudios. Anhelábamos conocer poetas, libros, sumergirnos en el universo literario, ahondar en el séptimo arte e, incluso, sonábamos con ser escritores. Convertirnos en profesores era una posibilidad, o tal vez el pretexto, para lograr nuestras metas. Tanto Fernando como Diego eran talentosos; tenían la mirada de aquellos que desean comerse, literalmente, el mundo, pero debían enfrentar cada día la pobreza como mayor obstáculo. Sin ser miserables, la pobreza se hacía palpar a menudo; constantemente nos veíamos en aprietos para conseguir lo del transporte, las fotocopias o la tiquetera para poder almorzar, que costaba tan sólo cien pesos.” 5

Additionally, Giraldo argues that love is the central character in Molano’s work: a marica love without the pretense that it is different, superior, or inferior. Giraldo comments that “The point of contact between Molano and other writers, like Alvarado Tenorio, is in his experiences of sexual desire towards other men, in the way in which these experiences are lived in the Colombian context, and in the literary fact of sharing these experiences through writing” (229-230). Likewise,

I agree with how Giraldo describes Molano’s likeness with other Latin American authors, given that by sharing intimate and relatable experiences that are intrinsically related the Colombian social and historical contexts, Molano’s writing becomes the by-product of such originality. Thus,

Molano’s unique description of homosexual affection and the Colombian experience are central to Giraldo’s work, as well they are an integral part of mine.

Mauricio Pulecio does two separate readings on Molano. First, he analyses how homophobic and offensive language perpetuates discrimination against LGBTQ youth in the school system of the city of Bogota and recommends that Molano’s literary work should be included in the Colombian high school curriculum to combat hate language and promote inclusion.

Pulecio studies the influence of public spaces such as the Luis Angel Arango Library3, a place that offers protection for sexual exploration and shields children from violence, as it did for Molano.

Second, Pulecio provides a literary analysis on Molano’s Vista desde una acera, where he studies a category called ‘in-xile’, that according to Yolanda Martinez-Sanmiguel, defines it as a form of

‘sexilio’(‘sexile’), “that does not generate a displacement towards the exterior but towards the interior, and takes place within the confines, material or imaginary, of the place of the author”

(24). Hence, both phenomena ‘inxile’ and ‘sexile’ are framed by Molano’s AIDS discourse, which

3 In the case of Fernando Molano, the Luis Ángel Arango Library, one of the most well-known and traditional libraries in the Colombian capital, became the protective space that allowed him to take refuge in literature. In other words, Molano Vargas carries out an internal inxile within the library, as one of the few accessible places capable of offering personal security, sexual exploration and cultivation of the imagination. 6 rampantly runs and attacks Adrián’s body. Pulecio points out that, unlike diseases like cancer,

AIDS provokes disgust, rejection, and disapproval, causing repudiation toward homosexuals. He also notes that many cultural productions of the twentieth century in Latin America were profoundly affected by the disease and argues that a non-canonical author such as Molano, who was directly affected by AIDS serves as an example, not only because for his narrative but because of his honesty.

Chloe Rutter-Jensen examines some cultural representations, including Molano’s Un beso de Dick, that offer an optic on violence in Colombia different from that of the armed conflict between paramilitaries, army and guerrilla groups that affected the country for decades. Rutter-

Jensen focuses on the gay novel, which makes visible affections and relations outside of the heteronormative scope. She raises a discussion of the various types of violence affecting gays: social exclusion, social cleansing, discrimination, and the existence and non-rigorous prevention of the transmission of the retrovirus that causes the immunodeficiency syndrome, HIV.

Comparatively, Marieth Serrato’s work on Molano shows how he constructs the homoerotic subject through his work and how he presents this topic to the reader without taboos or pretense; she argues that Molano’s central theme is boundless love. Serrato also points out that one of

Molano’s most significant contributions to the Colombian narrative is the sexual awakening expressed within the character paralleling his innocent development, shown without phobias or fears.

Álvaro David Urrea-Ramírez’s analysis points to the background of violence against people of the LGBT community that is the context for Molano’s work, but he also stresses the importance of love and romance. He argues that this is in contrast “to many other works that treat homosexuality, whose tendency is to tragedy and death as if every relationship between two men

7 were destined to fail” (9). Urrea-Ramírez shows how Molano’s stories are a portrait of two men who happen to love each other.4 Urrea-Ramírez points out that love in Molano’s texts is not only possible, but it is “not a typical kind of love because of the circumstances which it had to face.”

Here, love is “a feeling that develops at its own pace, on the terms in which the characters wanted it, without falling into the stereotypes and clichés that mark the image of homosexuals” (10).5

My analysis is also indebted to theoretical approaches to queer literature, particularly those of Lee Edelman’s Homographesis: Essays in Gay Literary and Cultural Theory (2016) and No

Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (2004), and Kathryn Stockton’s The Queer Child, Or

Growing Sideways in the Twentieth Century (2009). Edelman is a leading figure in gay studies, and his work shows how within the literary and cultural analysis, queer theory can find a space where to explore the social environment of gay representation in Western literature. Thus, provoking consequences, both negative and positive, on their sexuality and social anxieties contained within rhetorical representative discourses. Edelman also refers to the symbolic social function of the child, a figure that is disputed within the field of queer studies,6 conveyed through the rejection of the future and the negative character of the gay male (e.g., queer negativity) as a signifier of death. As a point of reference for this study, I take Edelman’s interest in the relationship between queer theory and literary studies and his argument for an explicitly gay critical methodology that includes an identity that is essential (or ‘homosexual difference’), as a separate

4 “La importancia que le da Molano al amor en sus libros me hizo darme cuenta que dentro del amplio espectro de obras que trataban a la homosexualidad había una tendencia a la tragedia y a la muerte: como si toda relación entre dos hombres estuviera destinada al fracaso de antemano. Esto no solo ocurre en la literatura sino también en el cine, en la televisión y en el teatro” (Urrea-Ramírez 9). 5 “Sin embargo, el amor en esas dos novelas y en ese poemario no solo era posible sino que no era un amor típico: tanto por las circunstancias contextuales a las que debía hacer frente, como porque era un sentimiento que se desarrollaba a su propio ritmo, en los términos en los que lo deseaban los personajes, sin caer en los estereotipos y en los clichés que marcan la imagen de los homosexuals” (Urrea-Ramírez 10). 6 Recent studies such as José Estevan Munóz’s Cruising Utopia (2009) and Michel Snediker’s Queer Optimism (2008) go against Edelman’s negativity, aligning instead with queer optimism and utopian hopefulness (Funke 2). 8 entity rather than as a changing differential relation. Edelman also considers a great deal of lexemic confusion that involves AIDS discourse, for instance, the rhetoric logic of “silence=death,” that contributes to the politically motivated confusion of the literal and the figural, the appropriate and inappropriate, the internal and the external (90).

Homographesis looks at the intersection of gay studies and literature from a Western standpoint. The book focuses on how Western culture for social control and political influence, has put gay men into categories of representation. Edelan asserts that these categories are coded into archetypes that have been molded to fit into a division of sexual identity, as to represent something that cannot be described, or that must be recognized or named as to cause a crisis just for the sake of representation itself. In the case of No Future, Edelman demonstrates that the symbolism of the child encapsulates a continuum socio-political discursive phenomenon where the allegorical child continues to represent humanity’s future. Specifically, and according to

Edelman, people are perpetually thinking about children. Hence, the figure of the symbolic child can oppress people based on “the political insofar as the fantasy subtending the image of the Child that invariably shapes the logic within which the political itself must be thought,” as for people to be deemed politically responsible. The previous remark is what Edelman calls reproductive futurism (Edelman 2). Meanwhile, Stockton’s reading in The Queer Child examines children’s strangeness (and indirectly subliminal ‘gayness’) and argues that every child has the capacity to appear queer, and challenges people to accept children through the queer lens of the twenty-first century, which tends to put children on a pedestal of protectionism (3-6). Similarly, my reading of

Molano is prompted by similar concerns, but in the context of Latin America, and more specifically the turbulence, authoritarianism, and violence of late-twentieth-century Colombia.

This thesis has been divided into three chapters. The first chapter is on Un beso de Dick

(“A Kiss by Dick,” 1992), which is Molano’s first novel and earned him some recognition, obtaining the Medellin’s Chamber of Commerce price in 1992. The text deals with themes of love, homosexual desire, life, and death, always under the central subject of homosexuality.

Homoeroticism and the homosexual experience, from the point of view of the adolescent, are constants in “A Kiss by Dick.” The novel’s language is explicit when describing the relationship between the two main characters. The narration depicts the main character, Felipe’s, sexual attraction to his classmate, Leonardo. The characters’ self-discovering and exploration of their homosexuality are mediated through their passion for literature and reading, in a very hostile environment. They construct their homosexual role models from literature since what they see around them in media, schoolbooks, and television does not reflect or teach them anything about what or who they are. Instinctively, Molano explores homosexuality in relation to the naive adolescent experience of the first love, experimenting with sexuality, and the homoerotic desire within an urban setting of Bogota. Molano also examines masculine environments by making his protagonist, Felipe, a gay football player. In this hyper-masculine sphere of sport, gay men are usually not welcome and are forced to hide their sexuality to avoid being the center of homophobia and to blend in with their team. Molano’s novel revolves around these diverse strands of self- discovery and self-effacement.

The second chapter is on Molano’s second novel, Vista desde una acera (“View From a

Sidewalk,” 2012), which is an autobiographical text with a young adult as its protagonist and deals with themes of poverty, relationships, discrimination, and HIV. Molano grew up in a low-income family where the struggle for economic stability was a constant battle to stay afloat. For instance, just like Fernando, the protagonist of “View From a Sidewalk,” Molano himself had to work as a

10 mechanic at his father’s workshop to help support his family and later works to sustain and aid his partner Diego. Molano disperses these personal experiences through the pages of “View From a

Sidewalk,” to reflect upon the impact that a precarious economic situation, gender roles, and traditional family values have on these characters, as a way to understand his personal life experiences, through writing about it. By expressing the difficulties of growing up poor, in a violent and loveless environment, Molano sees in literature an opportunity to process his childhood traumas and reflect upon his homosexuality.

The third and final chapter of this thesis is on Todas mis cosas en tus bolsillos (“All My

Things in Your Pockets,” 1997), Molano’s only book of poems, dedicated to Diego, Molano’s lover. Here, Molano explores themes of love, sexual pleasure, BDSM (which comprises various sexual practices such as Bondage and Discipline (BD), Dominance and Submission (DS) and

Sadism and Masochism (SM)), homoeroticism, and same-sex relationships. There is a combination, once more, of personal experiences with the creation of poetry which is organized in chronological order, starting with poems of a young Molano, later of an adolescent and finally an adult. Molano’s poetic voice changes with the course of his narrative, as it moves from the position of curious (even voyeuristic) eyewitness to full participant in the action described. One of the main elements in Molano’s poetry is its sexualized and homoerotic narrative poetic style. “All My

Things in Your Pockets” deals with its subject matter with a curious eye to develop a believable story embedded in the author’s cosmology. The urban setting in Molano’s poetry and its confessional approach, which reflects and depicts the writer’s experiences and imagination, are captured in the nuances of the senses, giving the reader a complete and intimate experience. A defining characteristic of Molano’s poetry is that it uses literature as an act of defiance that wants to share intimate and taboo life details of the author who feels identified with it. The narrator is a

11 voyeuristic, sexually active, rebel, lover, and literary connoisseur, who aims at capturing the attention of the curious reader.

My investigation concludes that Molano’s literary works contribute to the Colombian narrative in that it offers a hard look to the realities that homosexual individuals face. It points to a cathartic process where past traumatic experiences serve the author to create characters, of different ages and values, who express love, passion, desire and excitement. It also allows Molano to reimagine his childhood, adolescent and university years within a new narrative. As such,

Molano uses past family traumas, school episodes, and personal challenges to gain agency to reflect upon his misfortunes and translate them into tangible written work. Writing allows Molano to gain control of his narrative, leave a posthumous legacy, and transcend the mortal realm with the way people remember him after death. His literary characterizations echo Molano’s own life, giving each text an autobiographical indelible mark. Molano’s writing process allows him to examine what it means to be homosexual in Colombia by using the homoerotic experience and by exploring sexual desire and fantasy. Equally important, he includes his beloved Diego’s past experiences in his writing. Molano and Diego’s love story transcends the mortal realm, for posterity, through his writing process. Their immense love for each other, their dedication, their inspiration and legacy, are ever present in Molano’s novels. Finally, literature becomes a lifeline for both Diego and Molano, two lovers who were harassed by society and AIDS, were always close to death, and suffered homophobia, poverty, and discrimination.

Chapter 1: Love, Homoerotic Desire, and the Relationship Between Life and Death in “A

Kiss by Dick”

Un beso de Dick (“A Kiss by Dick,” 1992) is Molano’s first novel and earned him the highest literary recognition in Colombia that he obtained during his life: the prize of the Chamber of

Commerce of Medellín in 1992. The text revolves around the love between two teen boys, their sexual desire, life and death, under a central theme of homosexuality. Molano takes advantage of the power of literature as an exploratory tool where the main character, Felipe Valencia Arango, questions the social anxieties and consequences of openly expressing his own homoerotic desire as a way of accepting himself and of being accepted by others. The direct and honest style of “A

Kiss by Dick” allows Molano—through the homosexual character—to express his views about attraction toward the male body, sexuality, love, and the relationship between life and death without having to hide, change or please anyone else.

Literature allows Molano to rediscover the homosexual experience, where he considers issues with his own openness with homosexuality, as well as how society imposes restrictions on how and whom people should love. By mixing literary fiction with personal experience, Molano reflects on topics that are important to him, for instance, anti-homosexual discrimination, and extrapolates these concerns to his work for others to read and to reflect upon. Further, Molano makes his life’s work a work of testimony, a reflection of the survivor, a literary utopia that offers the story of two men and their love affair as though it was any other story. He does this with relatable characters filled with a sense of honesty in the hard stories of a creative man and his desire to live, love, and transcend the mortal realm. For an author like Molano, who writes openly about homosexual issues and who belongs to a marginalized group such as the LGBTQ community, the fact that he makes of literature his resource of escape, liberation and creative

13 resistance, makes of Molano’s “A Kiss by Dick” an example of how writing can become a transformative medium where the artist can find a channel for expression. Molano formulated new literary ideas under an oppressive, divided and violent society like Colombia of the 90s, where work that described the homoerotic experience and same-sex love tended to be ignored to preserve the established conservative canons.

1.1 Love, Homosexuality and Sexual Desire

“A Kiss by Dick,” tells the story of love, sexual desire, and recognition of one’s own homosexuality. Its protagonist and narrator, Felipe, is a ninth-grade high school student who loves playing soccer and starts to identify an intense sexual attraction for his teammate Leonardo.

Homosexuality and homoeroticism are constants in Molano’s novels, and this is especially true in

“A Kiss by Dick,” where the language is explicit in expressing the magnetism between the two main characters. These two subjects subtly appear within Molano’s narration as part of the main character’s sexual desire towards his amigo (boyfriend), Leonardo, as he explores his homosexual condition through self-discovery and the joy of youth. That is, Molano’s exploration of homosexuality is related, from the very first lines of “A Kiss by Dick,” to the adolescent experience of love, sexuality, and especially the desire for the male body within an urban setting like the city of Bogota.

Molano’s development of Felipe as a naïve but inquisitive character makes a strong appeal when the protagonist wonders why one falls in love with one person and not with another. As such,

Molano employs literature to ask questions about friendship, sexual attraction, and young love. It is as if Molano, by allowing Felipe to wonder introspectively about love and sexuality, he is questioning society in matters of same-sex relationships and the individual freedom a person should have when deciding whom to love and how to express such love. Hence, paralleling the

14 contemporary ideal that love is love no matter what. Felipe wonders about falling in love and why he loves Leonardo and not Libia, his first girlfriend and now friend: “But I say: how could I fall in love with Libia if I was in love with Leonardo ... This life is so strange: why does one fall in love with someone? I mean, why did I fall in love with Leonardo and not with Libia? [...] Ah, I don’t know: I only want to hug Leonardo!” (149).7 By contesting the general heteronormative consensus that a boy should love a girl and not another boy, Molano inverts that way of thinking, allowing the reader to focus on the fact that love is love, overlooking the gender of the characters.

Consequently, Molano gives the same literary importance of traditional writing to his novel “A

Kiss by Dick,” hence, showing that homosexual love is as valid as any other type of love. Further, by writing “A Kiss by Dick” from the premise of love and not traditional gender roles, Molano uses literature as a device to challenge the status quo within Colombia and its literary canon, thus asking stimulating questions on desire, sexuality, and homoeroticism.

In “A Kiss by Dick,” Molano continuously expresses the combination of physical attraction and sexual desire. The first time Felipe expresses his lust for Leonardo, it is formulated through a lunar metaphor. “Carlos had noticed the Moon, and he said that when it was like that, thin, was when he liked it the most: I imagined Leonardo's buttocks, and what I thought was nice was the furrow that was made in the middle, and then it occurred to me that God had torn that moon from between his buttocks” (28-29).8 The comparison between the moon and Leonardo’s backside has a sexualized component that brings the role of Leonardo as the muse in the mind of the narrator.

As such, Molano uses the moon as a metaphor, where its dark side—the furrow and its groove—

7 “Pero yo digo: como podría enamorarme de Libia, si yo vivía enamorado de Leonardo…Esta vida es tan rara: ¿Por qué se enamora uno de alguien? O sea, ¿por qué me enamoré de Leonardo y no de Libia? […] ¡Ah, yo no sé: yo solo quiero abrasar a Leonardo!” (149). 8 “Carlos se había fijado en la Luna, y decía que cuando estaba así, delgada, era cuando a él le gustaba más: yo imaginaba las nalgas de Leonardo, y me parecía que era lindo el surco que se le hacía en el medio, y entonces se me ocurrió pensar que Dios le había arrancado esa luna de entre sus nalgas” (28-29). 15 becomes a source of inspiration and exploration of sexual attraction and the discovery of something new and previously unknown: Felipe’s homosexuality. Besides, the moon allows Felipe to explore his sexual desire, even if it is developed in metaphorical terms; one can see a young

Felipe who is already identifying and wondering about his homoeroticism.

Molano also connects finding love with luck. For Molano, finding the right person to fall in love with has, in the end, little to do with personal intention but more with luck as a result of faith and fortune. For example, when Felipe expresses his ideal of love in terms of fortune, one can see a correlation made where no planning is needed as for love to appear, “Ultimately, this life seems like a coin toss. Because everything comes because it has to: as in luck” (149).9 Therefore, for Molano, more difficult than describing the relationship between literature and sexuality or the relationship between literature and sexual desire, is the matter of defining the relationship between literature and the individual pursuit of love and happiness. For the author, love is a matter of chance; falling in love is a question of fortune, of faith, of divine intervention, beyond our control.

Nonetheless, for Molano, self-identification, the confirmation of being loved and the fear of rejection, are all essential feelings when acknowledging one’s search for intimacy. For instance, when Felipe wants to confirm if his friend Leonardo feels the same way he does, that is, if

Leonardo is in love with him, he asks Leonardo an open-ended question about whether he likes men, as a safe way to start a conversation and explore the possibility of a homosexual romance:

- And do you like men?

- Men?!

- No, I don’t.

- Ahh ...

9 “Esta vida parece una moneda echada, a la final. Porque todo llega porque sí: como a la suerte” (149). 16

Men! But what a great dumb-ass I am, my God!

- I mean ... yes, I like them. Not all men. It is that ... uff, what a question!

- What happens is that I ...

- ...

- I only like you.

- Yes?!!

- Does it …bother you?

- Not at all! (40-41)10

By allowing Felipe to ask Leonardo about his sexual attraction towards “men,” and not his attraction for him directly, Molano grants the protagonist, Felipe, the license to act upon his sexual desire from a position of strength where he avoids rejection while opening up the possibility of being loved back. Nonetheless, there is a certain shyness in Leonardo as he admits his love, desire and, to an extent, his homosexuality when confessing that he only likes him (Leonardo) and not all other men. Thus, the phrasing of this moment of love between these two young men takes a romantic tone in the framing of the dialogue and, for an instant, Molano de-centers the conversation around the subject of “coming out.” That is Molano’s frames the conversation with intimate strokes where the narrative intention is in the love and attraction of these two boys and

10 - ¿Y a usted le gustan los hombres? - ¡¿Los hombres?! - No. - Ahh… ¡Los hombres!: ¡pero que grandísimo güevón soy, Dios mío!! - O sea…si me gustan. No los hombres. Es que… ¡uff, que preguntica! - Lo que pasa es que yo… - … - A mí solo me gusta usted. - ¡!! ¿Sí?!! - ¿Le… molesta? - ¡Para nada! (40-41) 17 not in labelling what they feel or what it represents to society in terms of sexual orientation or public self-disclosure.

Whereas Molano indeed uses the idea of writing things down in a diary as a way to break down stereotypes on homosexual attitudes and behaviours, he also highlights this written experience as an anti-masculine perspective. The idea of the diary comes with some internalized homophobic language that tends to conform to traditional gender norms. For instance, when Felipe kisses Leonardo for the first time, he wishes he had a diary with him, but right away disparages that idea as something a “faggot” would do: “Dear Diary, semi-colon, Leonardo has given me a kiss! ...: the problem is that I don’t have a diary. But, at least, it’ll be necessary to make an X in my calendar ... Better an X: diaries are a faggot’s thing” (48).11 Molano wants to demonstrate that a gay teen can also play football while expressing his feelings and emotions. That is, Molano wants to normalize gay interactions by offering other perspectives on the way homosexual men behave and express themselves.

Molano shows that in some environments, such as football, gay men feel they must hide their sexuality and personality to avoid being the target of homophobic backlash, verbal abuse, or bullying.12 Indeed, Molano’s word choice in describing writing a diary, in narrating something so mundane and innocent as one’s first kiss in terms those terms, comes across as heavily charged within heteronormative notions of homosexuality and femininity. That is, Felipe is in fact excited for having kissed Leonardo for the first time and wants to make it memorable by writing it down

11 “Querido Diario, dos puntos, ¡Leonardo me ha dado un beso! ...: el problema es que no tengo diario. Pero, al menos, habrá que hacer una equis en mi calendario… Mejor una equis: los diarios son una mariconería…” (48). 12 In fact, some football players who have had the courage to come out as gay to the world, just as the soccer player Robbie Rogers did in 2013, have said that they had to hide their sexual identity to avoid being the target of homophobic slurs from fans, as well as because their teammates continuously voiced their disgust toward homosexuals. Rogers’s teammates could not recognize the fact that a teammate could be both gay and a football player, which were apparently incompatible characteristics in their minds (Cromos & El Espectador, “Los Futbolistas Que Salieron del Closet”; McRae, “Robbie Rogers”). 18 but prefers not to have a diary because writing is “a faggot’s thing.” The implication is that writing a diary is not a masculine quality, and even less of quality in a football player like Felipe—a teenager who is discovering his sexuality—hence, suggests a tinge of homophobia contained within this sort of confidential writing. One cannot forget that Molano’s stance in “A Kiss by

Dick,” is for an inclusive and a non-political text about the love story of two masculine soccer players and not one of two homosexual teenagers.

With the description of writing a diary as something a “faggot” would do, the reader would pass off this situation as laughable and focus on the fact of the first kiss: the story of two people that love and care for each other, two people who just happen to be gay. In an interview that

Molano gave David Jiménez- Panesso in 1993, he explains how he would like “A Kiss by Dick” to be remembered:

I imagine this novel read ... and I hope it is read in three centuries’ time when the love

between two people of the same sex has nothing reprehensible about it. I suppose that

people would find certain values that I aspire to have left in the novel independently of the

gay issue.13 (Jiménez, “Reseña” min.23: 02)

It is clear here that Molano was a creative individual who exalts love as a valuable human condition and uses literature as a tool beyond the limitations of sexuality, gender conformity or even a simplistic vision of right and wrong to focus on values of fondness, intimacy, and passion. These are values that speak to any writer or public in a global context. Molano wants to leave those core values captured in his work, as a posthumous literary creation that will be a contrast to the social limitations of his time and a counterweight to the literary productions of his colleagues. Indeed,

13 “Yo me imagino esta novela leída... que espero ojalá fuese leída dentro de tres siglos cuando el amor entre dos personas del mismo sexo no tuviese nada de censurable. Supongo que se descubrirían ciertos valores que aspiro haber dejado en la novela independientes del asunto gay.” 19

“A Kiss by Dick” frames a world where, at its core literature, has a vision based on values of inclusion, tolerance and love.

The first sexual encounter between Felipe and Leonardo is narrated as a very public, sensual and provocative act, driven by the human instinct for pleasing the basic necessities of the body with which most people, from a compassionately human point of view, could relate. Molano makes of this first sexual encounter a sexualized yet awkward act, realistic and relatable: “Look how you got me. It looks delicious. It’s hard, right? Turn around, asshole…. […] Hot-damn: how it hurts! […] What an ass you have, Felipe…! God, why does it have to hurt so much?” (51-52).14

In other words, Molano narrates an innocent first sexual encounter—innocent in the sense that

Felipe and Leonardo are not sexually experienced—but as a blunt and graphic account that demonstrates their sexual inexperience. Ideas concerning pain and pleasure, are put forward in the context of these young gay teens, where sexual gratification, arousal, and penetration are all episodes that can happen, even without any previous sexual references.

On the other hand, Molano also presents male homosexual desire in terms of the supposedly macho virtues of a competitive sport such as football. Football is an aggressive physical contact activity where homoerotic behaviours are permitted to express the excitement or euphoria of the moment between energetic men. For instance, hugging, slapping backsides, grabbing bodily parts, and especially kissing, are generally permitted during games.15 Molano highlights these interactions between the players, in the context of the aggressiveness and macho culture of football, that allows for bodily contact, touching, grabbing and kissing. He shows how football is embedded in a macho culture where certain homoerotic behaviours are permitted only

14 “Vea como me tiene usted. Se ve muy rica. ¿Qué dura, cierto? […] Voltéese, güevón. […] ¡Mal-di-ción: cómo duele! […] ¡Qué culo el suyo, Felipe…! Dios, ¿Por qué tiene que doler tanto?” (51-52). 15 No Colombian football player has come out as gay yet, even though there are more than 290.000 professional football players affiliated with the Colombian Football Federation (FCF.com and FIFA.com 2019) (Forman 24). 20 when they can be misrecognized. He also makes a connection between pain (pleasure and phantasy) and homosexual desire when Felipe confesses that he sympathetically suffers when

Leonardo falls on the field while playing: “And you kill me when you fall down” (56).16 Here, the pain of one man is felt by the other. But, more importantly, Leonardo’s pain also triggers Felipe’s sexual fantasies of belonging to him. “Get out of your pants ... take them off! Oh, but it's delicious to hear him say those things like ... As if I were his? Or something like that” (57; emphasis added).17

By commenting on how the one feels the pain of the other, a bond of intimacy is proposed, and a sexual encounter triggered. Thus, Molano makes a correlation between pain, sexuality, and pleasure that speaks to the sexual freedom and experience of the author that has been transferred to the characters’ development. Indeed, a hint of sadomasochism is expressed through the sexual desire and innocence of these two young men. Here, Molano’s ideas are put in motion by his characters’ explorations of their homosexuality, homoeroticism, and male desire where one’s pain is felt by the other, causing pleasure and arousal.

We should, however, distinguish between “homoeroticism,” that is, temporary sexual attraction based on seductive emotions towards or between people of the same sex (Rodriguez-

Ortega 200), from homosexuality which refers to a matter of sexual attraction and hints at permanency in the person’s sexual orientation. Foucault defines homosexuality as a

“developmental failure” (Carr 99) and as an identity that has not undergone a full “normalization” process and with an oedipal origin (Carr 6). Therefore, homosexuality is always compared to the heterosexual subject as a sufficiently stable and mature subject. In contrast, the homosexual subject is seen as incapable of evolving. It remains, in emotional terms, an immature child. Homoeroticism

16 “Y a mi usted me mata cuando se cae.” (56). 17 “¡Quístese el pantalón…quíteselo! Ah, pero es delicioso escucharle decir esas cosas como… ¿si yo fuera suyo? O algo así” (57). 21 then precedes homosexuality and has found a much more welcoming take in the visual arts, literature, and history (Summers et. al., xvii-xx). Molano also examines another phase of sexuality—the sexual possession of one character by another. He describes Felipe as saying,

“When he takes me, he sweats a lot” (78).18 The sexual fantasy of being owned, that is, the sexual arousal of belonging to someone else, in this case, Leonardo, allows Felipe to fantasize about being a sort of sex slave to his lover, dominated by his masculine body, where sweat is the catalyst for their ecstasy and passion. This fantasy starts with Leonardo playing and sweating on the field and becomes sexual as Leonardo’s physicality takes the protagonist to a dream-like state where he belongs to his lover. The male body, its muscularity, and the fact that these bodies are sweating while playing football triggers a sexual fantasy in the protagonist’s mind. Hence, the fantasy of wanting to be owned by his boyfriend triggers physical qualities in Felipe, which can be compared to the experience of gay sex. As such, Molano not only juxtaposes the imagery of burning energy while playing soccer to that of intimate sexual activity, formulating a fantasy-memory crossover creation of a teenager’s sexual encounter, but he also helps to normalize their homosexual desire by comparing it to the euphoric excitement provoked by the masculine sport of football.

To sum up, there is intense sexual attraction, self-discovery, and passion for life in “A Kiss by Dick.” Through his teen characters, Felipe and Leonardo, and through a set of guiding values and principles, Molano explores what it means to love someone passionately and innocently. The author wants the reader to see the novel as a story of love filled with multiple values and intentions so that people do not focus too much on the fact that it is a story of two homosexual teens. Yet “A

Kiss by Dick” is a novel about homosexuality, innocence, love, passion, and homoeroticism, all at once. The interrelatedness of these subjects is what gives it coherence. Indeed, it is the intersection

18“Cuando él me posee también suda hartísimo” (78). 22 of sexuality and sensuality, the crossing of homosexuality and homoeroticism, the junction of pleasure and pain, and desire and romanticism, that engages the reader, and has made “A Kiss by

Dick” a cult novel in literary and underground reading circles.

1.2 Literature, Poetry, and Homoeroticism

At first glance, “A Kiss by Dick” is a novel about the self-discovery and love of two young and athletic gay high schoolers. However, it also conveys a desire to exalt the influence of literature and the intimacy and the adoration that Felipe and Leonardo have for one another. Leonardo represents the young writer who is the literary connoisseur of classic poetry and who mentors an uninterested and naïve pupil like the protagonist, Felipe. With this in mind, Molano establishes a connection between different types of relationships within the novel. On one side, there is an intellectual relationship expressed and centered around the love for poetry and literature of its protagonists. On the other, there is a romantic relationship between these two male characters.

Indeed, Molano parallels the relationship between Felipe and Leonardo, in terms of an exchange of literary knowledge where one teaches the other—a relationship of mentorship—similar to that of a teacher-student, where Felipe lets himself be tutored by his boyfriend Leonardo who is well- read and well-versed in the classics. However, when it comes to sexual experience and exploration of their homosexuality, both characters are novices. This idea means that they must learn the ins- and-outs of their sexual exploration as it happens, because there are few previous reference points from which they can learn, and they have to seek inspiration in the directions contained in literature, which is what is available to them.

In the case of their mentoring relationship, the teacher-pupil interaction between Felipe and Leonardo is like those relationships between master and pupil of Ancient Greece. Western literature contains reflections on love through history. Sketched in Plato's Symposium, the

23 institution of the Greek paideia (the rearing and education of the ideal member of the polis) is an example of such a relationship (Tate 124). Gregorio Morales, in Anthology of Erotic Literature:

The Game of The Wind and The Moon (1998), defines it as “the relationship established between a mature man (the erasta or lover) and a young man (the eromeno or beloved). In this type of association, love and learning are closely associated, so that a young man, when choosing his lover, focuses more on his intellectual side rather than on his physical abilities” (30). The cultural mobility that triggered this attraction “is linked to wisdom and spiritual advancement, and it is no longer a mere unbridled passion, but a path of knowledge” (Morales 30). That is to say that one form of love between the Greeks is the asymmetrical relationship between a couple of men.

In Molano’s novel, sexual tension is mixed in with literacy instruction and influence when

Felipe remembers something from Don Quixote, a quote that Leonardo has read to him, and opens the conversation towards verbalizing mutual attraction, charged with sexual innuendo, which may be hard for them to accept:

Just thinking about it, I was already as hard as a spear in a shipyard, as Leonardo says.

Leonardo says that is a thing from Don Quixote, which is the book that he has liked the

most in life after Oliver Twist. Of course, they cannot be compared, he says. He already

lent me Oliver, and I read it in one go: that book is so good! And he says that I should also

read Don Quixote. Because it is very beautiful. And because next year we’ll have to read it

anyway in literature class. (64)19

19 “Nada más con pensar en eso ya se me puso como lanza en astillero, como dice Leonardo. Leonardo dice que eso es una cosa del Quijote, que es el libro [que] a él más le ha gustado en la vida después de Oliver Twist. Claro que no se puede comparar, dice. Él ya me presto Oliver y yo me lo leí de una: ¡más bueno ese libro! Y dice que también debería leer El Quijote. Porque es muy bello. Y porque de todos modos el otro año tendremos que leerlo para literatura” (64). 24

With the influence that Leonardo exerts over Felipe, and the sexual tension that is the initial snare that catches Felipe’s attention, Molano uses literature as a hook, as a learning and mentoring experience, where a knowledgeable individual, here Leonardo, takes on the role of the literary mentor and cultivates a passion for reading. Therefore, helping to appreciate the beauty and importance of great literary works, not only in the protagonist’s eyes who is uninterested in reading but in the reader who has not yet made those connections. Hence, in Molano’s writing, there is a connection between literature and sexuality, where both have a seductive and mentoring role to play.

Molano was able to distinguish between the inspiration of well-known literary works and his work. It is clear that Molano finds himself inspired by them, as do the protagonists of these novels who are trying to discover whom they are (inspired by the bildungsroman novel style), as he explores themes of solitude, self-discovery, and acceptance, but Molano’s character development has its ways of approaching romance, love, and sexual interaction. In “A Kiss by

Dick,” beyond the references to Don Quixote, there is also discussion of The Catcher in the Rye, and there is even a reading of a poem by Eliseo Diego and his relationship to the first version of

Leonardo da Vinci’s Vergine delle Rocce. As such, the mix of literature and homoeroticism explores a basic but fundamental desire for human contact and sexuality. At the same time, Molano makes homosexuality visible by devising a story of teaching, loving and experiencing life together.

As Mauricio Pulecio observes, this type of literature can serve the LGBTQ community (and the education system in Colombia) as a teaching tool through which adolescents can learn more about their sexuality, avoid bullying, and become strong young people who respect and value difference and individuality in the other (17).

Felipe is seduced not only by Leonardo’s physical appearance but also by his love for literature. Leonardo represents the figure of the savvy poet, for teenagers interested in literature, and poetry is his weapon as he seeks to charm Felipe. Leonardo often seems unhappy, always with a sad face—and an aura of nostalgia—but these characteristics have a positive connotation of sensitivity and aesthetic self-consciousness, and make the narrator fall in love with him:

Leonardo is not here: What is up with him? ... In the end, it is better that he’s not here

because those songs that are playing are the saddest music: and today it seems that

Leonardo is being taken by sadness ... But he looks so beautiful like that ... Yes, I think

I’ve fallen in love with him because of that: because he has a face that seems to always be

nostalgic ...: with those eyes so big and full of eyelashes ... And you see him, and you fear

that, if you touch him, he will start crying; but then you look at him like that and he comes

out with a smile. (72)20

Here, Molano creatively uses sadness and nostalgia as something sexy, as a quality in the poet— the muse—of an individual who takes the role of teacher and who also attracts, seduces and lures his protégé, Felipe.

Mauricio Pulecio notes how Molano takes Dickens’s work as a source of literary inspiration by presenting a queer reading of one of his favourite English authors. Molano’s

“alternative reading” of Dickens intrigues Pulecio, not only because of how inspiring Dickens was for Molano but because it means challenging the conventional narrative about the English writer.

A young Fernando explains why his homosexual interpretation of Oliver Twist was so important

20 “Leonardo no est[á] aquí: ¿qué será lo que tiene?... A la final es mejor que no esté, porque esas canciones que están sonando tienen unas músicas de lo más triste: y hoy parece que a Leonardo se lo está llevando la tristeza…Pero él se ve tan bello así… Sí yo creo que me enamoré de él por eso: porque tiene una cara que parece que anduviera siempre de nostalgia…: con esos ojos tan grandes y rellenitos de pestanas… Y uno lo ve, y uno tiene miedo de que, si lo toca, él se va a poner a llorar; pero entonces uno lo mira así y él sale con una sonrisa” (72). 26 to him, invoking the image of Mark Lester, the child who stars in the movie based on the book.

We can see here Molano’s queer reading of Dickens:

Mark Lester was the most impossibly beautiful child in this world. But it was Oliver, or

Mark Lester dressed as Oliver, for whom that night I vowed to read the book whatever it

took, even if I’d need a thousand years to try to understand all the words [...]. But Oliver

Twist I read it whole, in a volume of Aguilar, from the Complete Works of Charles Dickens.

It was a fat book that scared me a lot because it looked like a bible.

[…]

I don’t know if it was because it brought a lot of impulses to read it, or why, but the

fact is that I went from one page to another as you go from a slide to a swing and from a

swing to a balancing pole and from a balancing pole to a crazy wheel, and everything like

that: as if it were nothing. But when I reach the end of chapter seven, I was frozen on the

page. I almost did not believe it: there, Oliver kissed another boy, his best friend, Dick.

And they embraced.

[…]

I guess nobody will remember that scene. At least, not as I remember it. Because,

of course, only I have my heart. And I suppose that for someone else reading it, they’ll

only have seen two children saying goodbye; Oliver because he was going to London, Dick

because he was going to die, and they knew it. I saw something else: two children who

kissed; two children who loved each other (Vista desde una acera 92-94). 22

22 “Mark Lester fue mi niño imposible más bello de este mundo. Pero fue Oliver, o Mark Lester vestido de Oliver, por quien esa noche me hice el propósito de leer el libro como fuera, así tardara mil años intentando comprender todas las palabras […] Pero Oliver Twist lo leí entero en un volumen de Aguilar de las Obras Completas de Charles Dickens. Era un libro gordo que me asustó mucho porque parecía una biblia. […] “No sé si fue porque traía mucho impulso de las ganas de leerlo, o por qué, pero el caso es que fui pasando de una página a otra como se pasa de un tobogán al columpio y del columpio al balancín y del balancín a la rueda loca, y todo 27

Just as Oliver Twist provides a model for Molano, Pulecio recommends reading Molano’s novels as a model for the adolescent, as part of an anti-bullying policy, as a way, for instance, to advance the eradication of violence against LGBTQ youth (39). This type of literary work would allow the discovering, as recommended by the philosopher Richard Rorty, and as mentioned in Pulecio and

Gold’s research, of stories that allows children and young adults for moral sentiments and ‘moral imagination’ (Gold 306) of guilt, indignation, and resentment to be explored. These feelings then would allow social recognition (or denial) of the other, where LGBTQ youth are seen as loving beings worthy of recognition (Pulecio 32-33). Molano exalts the act of reading for young teens as something fun, something joyful, even if it also seems daunting: he presents literature as something entertaining, filled with adventure, for a young reader who may be discovering who he or she is.

Yet the love that Felipe and Leonardo feel for each other is expressed in terms of impossibility and rejection. It seems to be impossible because when a security guard, some teachers, and the principal at Felipe’s school, all find out that he has kissed Leonardo, they see this as a socially unacceptable act that needs immediate correction. Moreover, it leads to rejection, because when Felipe runs home to find the protection of his family members after having been caught kissing Leonardo, he is greeted only by disgust and punishment; his father beats him, leaving him temporarily blind, just because he has kissed another boy. The narrator thinks of the negative consequences of loving, the rejection and violence that a simple kiss has caused, and compares his kiss with Leonardo to the kiss that Oliver gives Dick:

así: como si nada. Pero cuando llegué al final del capítulo VII, quedé congelado sobre la página. Casi no lo creía: allí Oliver se dio un beso con otro niño, con su mejor amigo, Dick. Y se abrazaron. […] “Supongo que nadie recordará esa escena. Al menos, no como la recuerdo yo. Porque, claro, sólo yo tengo mi corazón. Y supongo que, si alguien la leyó, sólo habrá visto a dos niños diciéndose adiós; Oliver porque se iba a Londres, Dick porque se iba a morir, y lo sabía. Yo vi otra cosa: dos niños que se besaban; dos niños que se querían.” (Vista desde una acera, 92-94) 28

What I should do is tell dad is that I'm in love with Leonardo: he's my boyfriend, I tell him

... No: not like that. Just tell him I love him. Because I’m not going to leave him for

anything. Yes, I’d tell him. And then I ask him if he could take me to the stadium…

- I wish everything was cool like that …

What I must ask dad is if he is going to kill Leonardo. If he says yes, then I leave home …

- But where?

If I leave for Medellín: with Uncle César, or with Aunty?... No: that would be like if I never

left. And I’m not going to leave Leonardo here alone. Better to go wandering around. And

then I’d become a homeless person and everything. Just like Oliver Twist… So beautiful!

Oliver also kissed his friend from the orphanage. Dick kissed Oliver because he was going

to die. But no one saw them. Thank goodness no one saw them; because they would have

killed them. If they were beaten just for asking for food… They would have been killed,

for sure.

- And there and then the novel would have ended.

If the guard had not seen us ... How stupid: we should have been more careful ... But of

what? I mean: why?! In the end, what’s bad is not that we kissed, but that the security guard

had seen us. Really: if he had not seen us, now I would be all happy and not crying like a

dumb ass, people do nothing but harm one’s happiness. And I would not be sitting here,

holding my head and everything; and dad would not have wanted me out of school or

anything; and nobody would be asking me why, Felipe, why, Felipe. (112-113) 23

23 “Lo que debería hacer es decirle a papá que yo estoy enamorado de Leonardo: que él es mi novio, le digo... No: así no. Solo quiero decirle que lo quiero. Pero que no lo voy a dejar por nada, sí le digo. Y entonces le pregunto si me podría llevar al estadio… - Ojalá todo fuera así de chévere… Lo que tendré que preguntarle a papá es si lo va a matar a Leonardo. Si dice que sí, me voy de la casa… - Pero ¿a dónde? 29

So Molano uses literature as a mirror, to reflect on the intolerance that some parents and teachers

(and society at large) may show to someone who is different, who goes against the norm. This is especially true when facing the reality that two boys may love each other. So much so that Molano invokes Dickens’s story, changes some parts of it—like the kiss scene—and highlights a homosexual reading of the text that models innocent interaction, passion, love and happiness between two regular young boys.

1.3 Life, Death, and Grieving

Molano sees in literature an artifice that enables a special sort of memorization of the beloved friend who has passed but is still remembered and loved. Literature here is a means to open a dialogue with the dead friend. By narrating events that marked his relationship with the deceased,

Molano uses literature, as in “A Kiss by Dick,” to honour the friend’s memory and declare eternal love for him. Molano also explores feelings related to death, such as guilt, anger, bitterness, hostility, loss, and loneliness. These feelings are experienced by the narrator, Felipe, as a representation, but also enhancement, of the experience of mourning the loss of someone important.

So the loving relationship between the two main characters, Felipe and Leonardo, is not only as a homage to the living, but also (as in Molano’s other texts) a way to juxtapose lighthearted

¿Si me voy a Medellín: ¿con mi tío Cesar, o con tía? …No: eso sería como no irme. Además, yo no voy a dejar a Leonardo aquí tirado. Mejor me voy de andariego por ahí. Y me vuelvo un gamín y todo. Como Oliver Twist… ¡Tan caso! Oliver también se dio un beso con un amigo del orfelinato. Dick le dio un beso a Oliver porque se iba a morir. Pero no los vieron. Menos mal no los vieron; porque si no los habrían matado. Si les pegaban por pedir comida… Los habrían matado: seguro. - Y ahí se habría acabado la novela. Si no nos hubiera visto el celador… Que brutos: debimos tener cuidado… Pero ¿de qué? O sea: ¡por qué?! Ala final, lo malo no es habernos besado, sino que nos hubiera visto el celador. De verdad: si no nos hubiera visto, ahora yo estaría todo feliz y no llorando como una pelota: la gente no hace sino dañarle a uno la felicidad… Y no estaría aquí sentado, agarrándome la cabeza y todo; y papá no querría sacarme del colegio, ni nada; y nadie me estaría preguntado que por qué, Felipe, por qué, Felipe” (112-113). 30 themes, such as passion and love, with the darker subjects of guilt, grief, loss, and mortality. It is as if Molano wanted to leave a message that speaks to those who remain alive and for those who have perished but remain with us in memory. Felipe must learn to live and love with the memory and mourning of a beloved dead friend, Hugo while discovering the intensity of new love. For in the first line of “A Kiss by Dick,” Felipe reminisces about the death of his childhood best friend, whom he loved dearly and still remembers years after he has passed. Felipe remembers Hugo as someone who is ever-present, a ghost of sorts within the narration, an eternal loving specter. In this opening line, Felipe candidly and reproachfully remembers the anniversary of Hugo’s death:

“Today is Monday. Hugo. And you died four years ago. Four years already, asshole!” (11).24 Note that Molano uses humour, mixed with profanity, to admonish his dead friend’s absence, but, more importantly, to express disapproval in that he feels left behind: he expresses a sort of guilt for being alive and reproach for a future not shared with his childhood friend.

The remembrance of the friend who has died, yet is still thought of and loved, is one of the many leitmotifs in Molano’s work. However, the guilt that Molano expresses and his reproach for not being able to share a future with his childhood friend, align with what Lee Edelman calls— reproductive futurism—a puzzling idea that is conveyed in No Future. Here, the symbolic idea of the Child is what is essential, and repudiates people, like Molano, who do not align with such futurist ideals or that do not want to be determined by the future ( Edelman 4). For Edelman, the relationship between homosexuality and the idea of “reproductive futurism” appears when gay sexuality implies, but not necessarily, individual non-reproductive choices. More importantly,

Edelman sees queerness and homosexuality as negatives, as defined by Lacan negativity and rejection of power in accommodating oneself to what others think of a desirable or “safe” future.

24 “Hoy es lunes. Hugo. Y usted se murió hace cuatro años. ¡Cuatro años ya pelotudo!” (11). 31

Consequently, homosexuality and queerness, which are identity categories, question “safe” and

“stable” discursive fabrications of the self and the social order that tend to be heteronormative

(Funky 1). For this reason, Molano’s intention when remembering his child friend Hugo does not come simply as a process of grief, which in short sight it may be, but speaks to the awakening, the pervasiveness of the idea of futurity that is ever-present in media and political rhetoric.

The dead character of Hugo appears as a recurrent narrative strategy, to give depth to the story of a character who has passed but is ever-present. As mentioned earlier, Hugo is inspired by a real person, Hugo Molina, also nicknamed “Diego,” who was Molano’s university boyfriend.

Marieth Helena Serrato Castro, a classmate at the National Pedagogical University, writes:

In 1985 we met Fernando Molano. We saw him for the first time on the second floor of the

modern languages building of the National Pedagogical University of Bogotá; next to him,

was a skinny, lanky boy of medium height, who with a marked paisa accent, introduced

himself as Hugo Molina, someone who from that moment on would be called simply

“Diego.” […]

In the time we shared with Fernando Molano, we admired his intelligence, his

discipline for study, his passion for knowledge, and his love for everything he did. He was

a fighter who managed to carry out his dreams and always helped and supported Diego.

Our university time was difficult, as far as economics was concerned, for some more than

for others. (9-10)25

25 “En 1985 conocimos a Fernando Molano. Lo vimos por vez primera en el segundo piso del edificio de lenguas modernas de la Universidad Pedagógica Nacional de Bogotá; junto a él, se encontraba un muchacho flaco, desgarbado, de estatura media, quien con un marcado acento paisa, se presentó como Hugo Molina, mas sería llamado con el tiempo simplemente ‘Diego.’ […] “En el tiempo que compartimos con Fernando Molano, admirábamos su inteligencia, la disciplina de estudio, la pasión por el conocimiento y el amor por cuanto hacía. Fue un luchador que logró sacar adelante sus sueños y siempre ayudó y apoyó a Diego. Nuestra época universitaria fue difícil, en lo que a economía se refiere, para algunos más que para otros.” 32

Molano had met Diego before embarking on his literature studies at the Pedagogical University, and they would stay together until the death of his beloved boyfriend at the hands of AIDS in 1987.

Then ten years would pass in which Molano would devote himself to writing and publishing, a task that would occupy him until shortly before his death, on April 10, 1998. However, Hugo

Molina (or Diego) died two years before finishing his university studies, which according to

Serrato, led Molano also to abandon his studies and to devote himself to taking care of Diego, because with the certainty of his friend’s illness, Molano’s HIV status was also confirmed.

To better understand what HIV means in medical terms and from literary analysis, Lee

Edelman’s Homographesis explains that the Human Immunodeficiency Viruses (HIV) is a retrovirus that copies and reproduces itself into the DNA by a process called reverse transcriptase.

He illustrates how the process of reverse transcriptase within HIV, works as an insidious mechanism that is exceptionally effective in its modeling:

The process of reverse transcriptase allows the virus to copy its genetic information into a

form that can be integrated into the host cell’s genetic code. Each time a host cell divides,

viral copies are reproduced along with more host cells, each containing the viral code. At

issue in the disease itself, then, are questions of inscription and transcription, questions of

reproduction and substitution. […] It changes the meaning of the cellular code (through

metaphoric substitution), so that each reproduction or articulation of the cell disseminates

further the altered genetic message. Moreover, one of the properties of HIV is that it can

alter the genetic structure of [the] external proteins that form the outer coat by which the

immune system is able to recognize it. Thus, it can evade the agents of the immune system

that work to defend the organism against what is alien, irregular, or improper. Even worse,

since HIV attacks the immune system itself, depleting the T-4 or T-helper cells, it prevents

the immune system from being capable of recognizing foreign substances (antigens) and

eliminate them from the body. Hence, even as it works its tropological wiles within the

infected cells, HIV is subverting the capacity of the immune system to read the difference

between what is proper to the body or “literal” its own, and what is figural. (90-91)

In order words, HIV and its process, which reverse transcriptase, are exceptionally efficient in attaching, copying and reproducing itself to the healthy host cells. Edelman highlights the way in which HIV inscribes itself as a friendly section of the host’s DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid), by copying its own genome into the host’s DNA and RNA, molecules which are essential in the inscription (e.g., the original and direct lettering of genome) process of coding, decoding, as well as, the expression and regulation of genes.

From the very first exchange in “A Kiss by Dick” between the protagonist, Felipe, and the ghost character of Hugo, Molano uses literature to honour and establish a dialogue between the living and the dead, between the healthy body and the sick one, and between the literal and the figural. Molano’s dialogue questions the dead friend as though he were present, listening and ready to answer. “I am here: lying by the lake, looking at the sky and waiting for school to open. Looking at the sky ... And where are you now? Well, up there, I hope” (11).26 With such intense questioning,

Felipe reproaches Hugo by reminding him of his death and of the fact that he has been left behind for four years now. Every day, Felipe continues a conversation with his dead friend, even knowing that he is not physically present; a feeling of loss is verbalized and directed at his friend. For example, in this continuous and one-sided conversation, Felipe expresses painful feelings, that are part of the figurative language associated with loss, such as sadness, denial, anxiety, and loss for his friend Hugo, an interlocutor who can only listen from the beyond. Hugo becomes a listener

26 “Yo estoy aquí: tirado junto al lago, mirando el cielo. Esperando que abran el colegio. Mirando el cielo… ¿Y usted dónde anda?: bien arriba, espero” (11). 34 from heaven, an extraterrestrial being, an ever-present specter, a metaphorical alien who has become essential in existence throughout the novel.

At the beginning of “A Kiss by Dick,” Molano makes vivid the love that Felipe still feels for his dead friend, as strong as the love he is starting to feel for his classmate Leonardo: “Really: what I would most like is to get Hugo out of the cemetery and hug him. Like this: with all his worms. So that he knows that I still love him” (13).27 Through the use of memory within the narration, Molano creates a dialogue that goes beyond the limits of life and death, thus demonstrating an interrupted prolongation of their relationship, beyond the grave. For Molano, the most potent manifestation of pure love is that it endures even after years have passed and that death cannot limit or stop it. At the same time, Felipe appreciates the fact that he is still alive and has a body with which to express and feel love. The realization that he has time to live and to love, allows Molano to reflect on the capacities of the living body of Felipe, a dreamer who utopianly fabricates future careers in cinema, and football, as someone who will become rich and famous:

God, I have my whole body alive! ... And what is the use of having so much? What do I

want my body for? ... I can get up and do things, of course. With my legs, I play football,

and I am good at it: one day I will play for Juventus. If I am not a footballer, I will make

good films and I will become famous and rich: Felipe the Conqueror will have the world

at his feet like a ball ...: And for what? Oh, I just want Leonardo to love me, for him to be

now by my side ... and to belong to him. (15)28

27 “De verdad: lo que yo más quisiera es sacar a Hugo del cementerio y abrazarlo. Así: con todos los gusanos. Para que él sepa que yo lo quiero. Todavía” (13). 28 “¡Dios, yo tengo todo mi cuerpo vivo!... ¿Y para qué me sirve tener tanto? ¿Para qué quiero yo mi cuerpo?... Puedo levantarme y hacer cosas, claro. Con mis piernas juego fútbol y soy bueno: un día jugare en la Juve. Si no soy futbolista, filmare películas buenas y me haré famoso y rico: Felipe el Conquistador tendrá bajo sus zapatos el mundo como un balón…: ¿Y para qué? Ah, yo solo quisiera que Leonardo me amara; que él estuviera ahora a mi lado… y ser como de él” (15). 35

As such, through the youthful and curious voice of Felipe, Molano questions the many possibilities of being young and alive. Via introspective self-reflection, Molano favours life over death, demonstrating the many good prospects for Felipe: he could be a great football player, become a great filmmaker, or be rich and famous. In the end, what really matters (in the mind of an inexperienced Felipe) is to be known and to be remembered, just like Molano hoped for his work to be remembered after his own death.

In the second part of “A Kiss by Dick,” the theme of death reappears, building on the first part of the novel when the reader learns about Hugo as Felipe’s dead best friend. The reader gets a more detailed description of Hugo’s passing, and an exploration of what the narrator thinks about his friend’s death, as he muses about disease, illness, and death:

Hugo died. That does make me sad. Seriously, I loved Hugo more ... Of course, he did not

like playing football; and that’s why they almost did not want him on the block. As if he

were an extraterrestrial for not playing football. I did love him because that didn’t matter...

But he died. At twelve years of age! No one should die at twelve years of age: God is so

weird ... And Hugo was all cute: when we slept together, he always stole my blankets, and

left me completely uncovered. And I did not pull on the blankets because I was afraid that

he might wake up. I am an idiot. But then Hugo realized it, I don’t know how he did it, and

he turned around and tucked me up like when mom used to tuck me up. And it would kill

me every time he did that ... (109)29

29 “Hugo se murió. Eso sí me pone triste. En serio. Yo lo quería más a Hugo… Claro que a él no le gustaba jugar fútbol; y por eso casi no lo querían en la cuadra. Como si fuera un extraterrestre por no jugar futbol. Yo si lo quería porque eso que tiene… Pero se murió. ¡De doce años! Nadie debería morirse de doce años: Dios es tan raro… Y Hugo era todo lindo: cuando dormíamos juntos él siempre me iba robando las cobijas, y me destapaba todo. Y yo no le tiraba de las cobijas porque me daba miedo que él se despertara. Yo soy como muy bobo. Pero entonces Hugo se daba cuenta, yo no sé cómo, y se volteaba y me arropaba como cuando mamá me arropa. Y a mí me mataba siempre que el hacía eso…” (109). 36

Here, Molano demonstrates, that even after death, a strong connection with the dead can remain.

This love connection is solid, even after years of being dead, and memory works as a conduit to revive anecdotal experiences of life together where feelings of tenderness, compassion, sadness, but above all, love, remain with the living. Molano describes Hugo’s state as “extraterrestrial,” that is, beyond the world of the living that Felipe inhabits. However, it is odd that Felipe speaks to

Hugo, now dead, as though he were up above, an extraterrestrial flying above the earth.

Similarly, Molano explores sentiments about illness, the deterioration of the body, the idea of a farewell kiss to a body now dead, and the sorrow of knowing that his best friend is no longer alive. It is important to remember that Molano has created the character of Hugo, as a child, to honour the memory of his beloved partner Hugo Molina who died of AIDS. For this reason,

Molano uses literature as a memory and denouncing tool. That is, he uses it as a mnemonic device where Hugo is not entirely dead but can be rescued (brought back) from the beyond and talked to as if he were in the same room with the author. Molano uses literature to denounce and reflect upon the impact (and the consequences) that HIV/AIDS has on the sick body:

-Hugo…

Why did Hugo have to get sick? Nobody should get sick. He got very skinny and

everything. The second time we went to visit him in the hospital, he did not look like

himself anymore. Except that his face looked like it was his. Mom left the room. Mom is

very nervous: sometimes. I did stay. And I said: “What’s up, Hugo.” But he did not say

anything because he was asleep. And I moved his shoulder and said the same thing again:

he did not move at all. And I felt sorrow. So, yes, I gave him a kiss: on the lips and

everything. But he did not notice. He was cold ... And then mum came in all scared with a

nurse, and they got me out of the room: because Hugo was already dead. Just then Hugo

had died. (109-110)30

Molano expresses the impact that HIV and AIDS can have people, which in turn is associated with the dead as a result of suffering and illness. The symbolic figure of Hugo, as the child, represents

Hugo the adult who has died from AIDS.

Molano expresses the impact that the dead can have on all of us. Dying is inconceivable when it happens to a child or a young person, just like his beloved Diego [Hugo] was when he finally died. However, Molano describes this last interaction tenderly, with the kiss between an innocent Felipe and a dead Hugo, and a lasting impression of devotion, affection, and love remains.

There is no disgust in Felipe for having kissed the dead body of his friend; only love and sorrow, and the narrator’s memory of losing his confidant. Therefore, Molano, without directly mentioning the virus in Un beso de Dick, employees the figure of the sick body, of the ghost of Hugo, to refer to the metaphorical attack in the transcription of AIDS, which has copied, besieged and subverted

Hugo’s healthy body and made it sick and skinny to the point of killing him. Yet, Molano uses the figure of the dead child as to, on one side, acknowledge Edelman’s idea of ‘reproductive futurism’ expressed in No Future. On the other, by establishing Hugo not only as a child but, more importantly, as a queer child, Molano aligns himself with Kathryn Stockton’s conception of the

“backward birth” expressed in The Queer Child, hence destabilizing and negating the binary of homosexuality as death and the child as the future.

30 “Hugo… “¿Por qué tuvo Hugo que enfermarse? Nadie debería enfermarse. Se puso muy flaco y todo. La segunda vez que fuimos a visitarlo con ma al hospital ya no parecía él. Sino que su cara sí era como la de él. Ma se salió del cuarto. Ma es muy nerviosa: a veces. Yo sí me quedé. Y le dije: ‘Quihubo, Hugo.’ Pero él no dijo nada porque estaba dormido. Y le moví el hombro y otra vez se lo dije: ni siquiera se movió. Y a mí me dio un pesar. Entonces yo sí le puse un beso: en los labios y todo. Pero él no se dio cuenta. Estaba más frio… Y después ma entró toda asustada con una enfermera y me sacaron del cuarto: porque Hugo ya estaba muerto. Hacía poquito estaba muerto Hugo…” (109-110). 38

In short, Molano uses literature to create a value system, to demonstrate an appreciation for life and death, where sexual desire, homoeroticism, and love, are all intertwined themes that show that literature can be a mirror held up to society to envisage other forms of acceptance and freedom. Molano uses literature as a way to rediscover the values of love, inclusion, and sexual freedom from the innocent gay teen. Literature, for Molano, serves as a means to raise questions by which traditional gender roles, that is, the status quo of sexuality and sexual desire, can be reformulated to find individual happiness. Molano shows that writing, from the adolescent’s point of view, is a “faggot’s thing” in a hyper-macho sport-dominated culture where homophobic language enforces traditional gender rules. Molano points to the fact that what the gay player feels—his desire and his tenderness—must be hidden from public view, to avoid his being the object of homophobic abuse. “A Kiss by Dick” is a novel that uses literature as a tool that goes beyond the restrictions of sexuality, gender conformity and what is perceived as right or wrong; it focuses on the values of affection, intimacy, and desire.

“A Kiss by Dick” presents homosexual desire and homoeroticism in terms of self- discovery, a personal journey undertaken through the exploration and reading of literature.

Expressing intimacy and desire, pain and pleasure, and the tenderness and aggressiveness that the protagonists have for one another, each character gets to explore what these feelings represent.

Molano initiates an intellectual correlation based on love and passion for literature, where writing and poetry help cement and express the protagonists’ relationship in terms of the exchange of literary knowledge—a mentorship process, similar to that of a teacher-student. Then, for Molano, literature can be a hook, a learning experience where seduction and mentorship play an essential role. Also, what better way to express his passion for literature than alluding to literary

39 masterpieces that influenced the author himself, such as Don Quixote and Oliver Twist, works that recur throughout Molano’s trilogy.

Finally, “A Kiss by Dick” is centered on the idea that, through literature, and primarily through reading and writing, the art of learning can be a fun and joyful exploration. Molano presents literature as something entertaining, filled with adventure, pleasure, and self-discovery.

At the same time, it is in literature that society can reflect on its intolerance and indifference toward what is conceived as different or divergent. Yet Molano also sees literature as a craft that enables memorialization and remembrance of the ever-present dead friend. Through writing and remembering the dead, honest dialogue can be had with that ghostly figure to explore feelings of guilt, anger, bitterness, loss, and loneliness. Literature can serve as a homage for the living and, fundamentally, to communicate with those who have left the mortal realm. Further, writing allows

Molano to explore the issues of HIV/AIDS, questions of the literal and the figurative and of inscription and transcription, elements used in national discourses in relation to the illness and its reproduction, which allows HIV to disseminate its subversive message.

Chapter 2: The Mark of Poverty, Homosexuality, and Sickness in “View From a Sidewalk”

In Vista desde una acera (“View From a Sidewalk,” 2012), Fernando Molano shares his experiences, frustrations, and hopes for improving his (and his partner’s) deteriorating prospects, the pervasive violence afflicting his household, and the prejudice against being homosexual and ill. Fernando and his lover Adrián deal with social rejection, mistreatment, and discrimination for being impoverished and queer. Adrián is also the focus of discrimination for being sick with HIV31 and, later, AIDS.32 To make matters worse, Fernando lacks the support, love, and affection of his immediate family, a set of circumstances that is a source of enmity, indifference, and unhappiness for him and his lover. From childhood, Fernando sees himself as having a life deprived of affection, exacerbated by the lack of opportunities and money. In Fernando’s recollection, he cannot remember seeing his father and mother express their love for each other with a kiss or with a simple

“I love you.” This lack of love and affection marks Fernando for life (29). What Fernando grows up seeing is conflict, domestic violence, and verbal abuse from the people supposed to protect him.

The household conflict then is aggravated by the family’s precarious financial situation, which is intensified by his father’s infidelity, alcoholism, and business failures. For Fernando, the absence of love between his parents, coupled with the distance among his siblings, determine what he later comes to crave the most: finding real love and acceptance outside his immediate family. As an adolescent and an adult, Fernando then grapples with the idea of standing up for who he is, which

31 Human Immunodeficiency Virus or HIV is transmitted sexually. A person who does not receive adequate medical treatment after having contracted the HIV virus will live approximately 9 to 11 years (Brown, T., et al., i5; UNAIDS, 2014). HIV infection can also be spread through infected blood. The virus infects healthy T-cells, also called CD4+ cells, within the person’s human immune system and can drive to the getting the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome, or AIDS, if left untreated (Cunningham 34; Dow, Dorothy E., et al., 617). 32 AIDS or the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome is a severe infectious disease that can cause the death of the person who carries the HIV virus. Since HIV infection destroys the body’s immune system, the virus then hacks a body’s body capacity to act and combat the illness. If a treatment is not implemented in time, a person who is infected with HIV, and does not receive appropriate treatment, will develop AIDS and die in about 10 years (UNAIDS, 2014).

41 means defending his homosexuality. Fernando faces all of this by battling stigma and discrimination33 from within and outside of his family circle, while facing the fact that Adrián’s body is deteriorating from AIDS complications.

Molano insistently explores issues of human relations (family, romantic, sexual), as well as the rejection, discrimination, and stigma that AIDS causes homosexual men. He does this through characters that are similar to him in real life. Literature allows Molano to express his point of view, as a writer, on topics of homosexual love, stigma, discrimination, and sexual desire to an audience that perhaps needs to read these stories that would otherwise have been silenced, suppressed or made invisible. In other words, literature, and more precisely writing, grants Molano the freedom to reflect upon a sort of a triple social exclusion he and his lover must face. Molano also explores what it means to be in love, in search of love, or looking for affection and recognition, elements that, to one extent or another, were missing or incomplete in his own personal life. Indeed,

Andrés García Londoño, in his review of “View from the Sidewalk,” points out the importance of homosexuality in Molano’s work: “a large part of [Molano’s] work talks about the weight it

[homosexuality] had for the author, that personal characteristic in his emotional and sexual life, particularly at a time when many Colombians—the majority, perhaps?—openly, and almost proudly, acknowledged themselves to be homophobes” (“De exclusión y honestidad” 129).34

“View From a Sidewalk” is an autobiographical novel, heavily influenced by the life of the author, but it still contains great fictional license. The novel has two distinctive narrative storylines.

33 As mentioned by Pranee Liamputtong in Stigma, Discrimination and Living with HIV/AIDS (2013), the public only became aware of the AIDS/HIV epidemic during the 80s, and since then the disease has provoked a multiplicity of reactions. HIV/AIDS is perceived not only as deadly disease if left untreated, but also as a source of stigma and discrimination for the person who carries it. Even after so much information and education has been provided to the public about HIV and AIDS, people’s prejudice and stigma continues (vii). 34 “gran parte de la obra habla del peso que tuvo para el autor esa característica personal en su vida emocional y sexual, de manera particular en un momento en el que muchos colombianos –¿la mayoría, quizá?– se reconocían abiertamente, y casi que con orgullo, como homófobos” (129). 42

The initial storyline is narrated in the present time by Fernando as an adult. Here, the protagonist has met the love of his life, Adrián, and faces the possibility he may die at any moment from AIDS.

Paralleling this first story, another storyline appears where the protagonist reminisces about his and his lover’s (Adrián’s) childhood as an exploration of innocence, loss, and happiness. Molano also mixes these two narrative lines, with flashbacks and shifts back to the present, narrating stories that, not coincidentally, mirror the lives of the author and his lover. The mixture of these two storylines, the back-and-forth within the narration, is evoked from memory and experience.

Molano also mixes these two narrative lines, with flashbacks and shifts back to the present, narrating stories that, not coincidentally, mirror the lives of the author and his lover. The mixture of these two storylines, the back-and-forth within the narration, is evoked from memory and experience. This narrative technique echoes Fernando the author’s experiences, visions, and dreams onto Fernando the character. The interweaving mirroring of reality and fiction writing in relation to homosexual tropes like the homosexual individual dealing with HIV, a deep desire in finding an accepting and loving family, the claiming of individuality and sexuality, and the expressing of loss, nostalgia and sadness in relation to AIDS and death. The following passages reflect upon this interweaving of memory and immediate experience:

Suddenly everything moves in a strange way, and the whole world becomes something

else: how does anyone notice? I look at this floor in front of me and it's like being

somewhere else, as if we were stuck at a different point from the others ... […]

... and then the nostalgia begins, that desire to read more slowly so that it ends anytime

soon ... […]

… Thus, we are here, completely suspended, bound by the instinct of useless hope; because

he has the envelope between his fingers and I take it, take out the paper and that word is

there again: positive… (17-18)35

The feeling of strangeness, that reality has been transformed by the tension that the characters feel, by being at the hospital, and a deep desire for escapism, for being somewhere else, is evident.

Nostalgia is also a powerful feeling, always expressed as a result of loss, of better times lived, and the realization that life will get difficult from now on. For Fernando and Adrián, hope is lost. Now the word “positive” (that is, HIV positive) has changed their lives forever.

Molano narrates the present in relation to the social rejection and bigotry surrounding

Fernando’s lover, Adrián, a character who faces rape, stigma, and discrimination for being gay.

Adrián also encounters poverty and discovers that he is infected with HIV as described in an introductory passage or scene entitled “Escenas para un diario: Primer día” (“Scenes for a Diary:

First Day”), where the narration has the feel of a movie, of a script for a film that perhaps Molano had planned. It places the reader on a “First Day,” the beginning of the disease, where the reader meets the novel’s protagonists: Adrián, who is in the hospital to check on his health, and the narrator, Fernando, who describes what is around them and how he feels. They both learn the diagnosis of the laboratory where it is confirmed that Adrián is HIV positive or “positive” for HIV.

This scene marks the departure point of the novel and the narrative style based on the personal, intimate and crossed with biographical details shared by an author who undergoes similar experiences and who ultimately dies because of the disease.

35 “…de repente todo se mueve de una manera extraña, y el mundo entero se convierte en otra cosa: ¿cómo nadie se da cuenta? Miro este piso frente a mí y es como estar en otro lugar, como si quedáramos atascados en un punto diferente al de los otros… […] “…y entonces empieza la nostalgia, esa ganita de leer más despacio para que se acabe menos pronto… […] “…Así estamos aquí, completamente suspendidos, obligados por el instinto a una esperanza inútil; pues él tiene entre sus dedos el sobre y yo tomo, saco el papel y está allí de nuevo esa palabra: positivo…” (17-18).

All these circumstances are important because they happen in a society like Colombia, where money, status, and tradition do not allow such deviations from the social norm. These are the same struggles that Fernando Molano himself had to endure in Colombia during the 80s and

90s. Thus literature enables Molano to juxtapose his own life experiences with those of his literary creations. Indeed, literature grants Molano agency to reflect upon his misfortune, traumas, and dreams, even if they are the result of his imagination. Moreover, by doing so, literature lets Molano exert some control over his narrative and over the way people would remember him after death.

For Molano, literature becomes an opportunity to create a universe and to control his own life by constructing parallel versions of himself in texts that reflect the hard realities and disenchantment he suffered in life, such as poverty, bigotry, and intolerance.

2.1 Poverty and Innocence

In the first chapter of “View From a Sidewalk,” entitled “Memories of Two Children,” Molano narrates not only events that he remembers happened to him as a child—in a stream-of- consciousness sort of confessional form—but also what his lover, Adrián, experienced and suffered as a child. Writing grants Molano agency in reclaiming his and his lover’s traumatic experiences as children, allowing him to revise, analyze, and transform them with the advantage that a reflective and mature perspective gives him. As a consequence, Molano uses literature as a memory tool where he can deconstruct both his and his lover’s life experiences, while reflecting upon painful struggles such as the loss of innocence, child molestation, and homophobic discrimination, within the parameters of the masculine image that society expects of them.

Similarly, literature allows Molano to deal with family issues while permitting him to confide personal traumatic experiences to the reader through Fernando’s reconstruction of events and how dysfunctional his family was. For example, Fernando discloses that he was not only poor

45 in monetary terms, but also “family-poor” (“pobre de familia”). More importantly, he is also the result of an accidental conception. This forces Fernando to reevaluate his existence in relation to other people’s goals, as an instrument in a failed relationship between his parents, where love was never present (34). By describing himself as “an accidental instrument,” and as the by-product of his parents’ desperate measures to fix their love, Molano reflects on his family’s affairs and the social anxieties that he had to undergo as a child, all through the character of Fernando. In other words, Molano internalizes his parent’s failed relationship by blaming himself for being born out of love. For Molano, the fact that his birth cannot rekindle the love that his parents once had for each other means that perhaps, just like the birth of his previous siblings, his was also a failed attempt in finding genuine love. Therefore, Molano’s conception only makes everything more complicated than it was. It does so by bringing the worst out his parents, meaning, their hatred for one another and his father’s suspicions that he is not really his son (33).

Fernando depicts his father as a pessimistic, conformist and violent man. This father figure is a sort of antagonist, a personality that is better understood—inductively—by the narrator, as the novel progresses. Through his literary character constructions, Fernando makes an effort to understand why the person who is supposed to protect him—his father—becomes “someone detestable” (“alguien detestable”) (43), a figure who, for most of his siblings, is disgraceful and despicable. Eventually, it is Fernando who tries to figure out why the father behaves and thinks the way he does. By putting himself in his father’s shoes, Molano tries to reveal the social and family pressures that turn a loving father into an unkind person. Thus, it is through the exercise of writing as a healing process—primarily through reconstructed diary entries—that Molano revises, deconstructs, and rewrites past traumatic experiences like resentment, guilt, anger, and other distressing emotions, that otherwise would have never been processed.

Literature also allows Fernando to reflect upon the role of this father and evaluate his personal experiences, frustrations, and traumas, comparing them to how his father views the world.

Fernando describes his father as always wanting to create an “industry of something,”36 but without any success (31). During most of the first section of “View From a Sidewalk,” there is a general feeling of frustration from Fernando’s siblings against their father, feelings that serve to mark two distinctive ways of understanding the father figure while displaying how different the main character is from the rest of his family members. Even from the very beginning of the story,

Molano shows that Fernando is a character on the periphery—as the other—based on feelings of being the misfit, aloofness, and distance from the family nucleus. This peripheral status makes of

Fernando an analytical but sensitive character who needs to beat the odds and become the ultimate survivor. For instance, Fernando calls himself a stranger, a foreigner in his own home and country:

Because those of us who carried the blood of my parents, the closest, did not differentiate

ourselves from those who lived in the world outside my home, in my country, this

iniquitous place, in love with its poverty, conforming and without dignity, ignorant of a

sense of brotherhood, of friendship, of true love, imbecile and selfish. That was us. So, not

only in my country, in my city, my neighborhood, and in my street; before everything, in

my own home, I felt like a stranger, a foreigner. (128)37

Through the voice of Fernando, Molano thus not only lets the reader know how he feels about his relationship with his family, but also clarifies the correlation he makes with the outside world and his country. Fernando becomes a character that is looking for a place to belong, to love, and to be

36 “Un ejemplo: en vista de que Isabel conocía la confección de piezas para zapatos, papá compró, estando recién casados, una máquina de guarnecer con el propósito de iniciar su ‘industria de algo’: una industria de calzado” (31). 37 “Porque aquellos que llevábamos la sangre de mis padres, los más prójimos, no nos diferenciábamos en nada de aquellos que habitaban el mundo afuera de mi casa, en mi país, este lugar inicuo, enamorado de su pobreza, conforme y sin dignidad, ignorante del sentido de lo fraterno, de la amistad, del amor verdadero, imbécil y egoísta. Eso éramos nosotros. Así, no solo en mi país, en mi ciudad, en mi barrio, y en mi calle; antes que nada, en mi propia casa, me sentía yo como un extraño, un extranjero” (128). 47 loved. Molano sees his family and the Colombian society of the 80s and 90s, where he grows up, in similar terms: each harbours cruel and unkind sentiments towards the other, when in fact they all have the same blood. Fernando therefore separates himself from what he considers to be a low- minded social atmosphere, hoping to find his safe place where he can build a shelter, a family nest, beyond a family (and society) that does not allow him to live and love another man.

Fernando associates his betterment with the notion of the exceptional by claiming that,

“Being poor is easy, being mediocre is easy, being a slave is easy, it is easy to be insignificant, to be of use. Living in misery is comfortable” (128).38 Disliking being poor, Molano takes on the challenging but rewarding path towards trying to be the best he can be. He equates “being a slave and insignificant” with being ordinary, without a purpose, inactive, and enslaved to the will of others. By becoming a literature student and later a writer, Molano not only wants to better himself as an individual but also plans to take on the life of the writer: a creator of stories, a storyteller of sorts who might be able to live comfortably and passionately. There is an explicit mention in the novel of Fernando wanting to become a writer: “But then Adrián comes to me with a crazy idea; he tells me that we should write a book that tells all these things that have happened to us [...]. I don’t know. At least so that it doesn’t happen to others … Maybe it’ll work” (85).39 By cultivating his mind and by writing about what has impacted his life, literature then allows Molano to make a better version of himself by using his creativity and imagination to dream and to escape his reality.

Molano was the first male from his family to go to university. In his novel, Fernando starts studying engineering (a field he is not interested in) and repairing cars in a small workshop in the center of Bogotá, a city where he meets, on a sidewalk, his future lover, Adrián. After the love

38 “Ser pobre es fácil, ser mediocre es fácil, ser esclavo es fácil, es fácil ser insignificante, ser de uso. La miseria es una comodidad” (128). 39 “Pero entonces Adrián me viene con una idea loca; me dice que deberíamos escribir un libro que contara todas estas cosas que nos han pasado […]. -No sé. Al menos para que no les pase a otros …Tal vez sirva” (85). 48 between the two begins, characterized by an almost idyllic romanticism that is, as they see it, unusual for a couple of gay men, Fernando convinces Adrián that they should enter the university together to study literature. Thus they become classmates and lovers, alternating their studies with mind-numbing jobs, in a factory in the case of Adrián, and in the workshop in the case of Fernando.

All their labour is directed to help with their expenses and to overcome the tremendous economic difficulties that both experience. Right after Fernando expresses what he thinks of underdevelopment, poverty, and mediocrity, he goes on to reject it for himself: “And for me, at least, I did not like it, I did not want it, sitting in the corner of my puberty, I looked at my family picture and I hated the example of the life that had been my lot” (128).40

By rejecting the family model, Fernando dreams that he can change his horrendous family situation, and plans to do so. In his mind, he has the will and the desire to effect the change. If he wants it badly enough, if he dreams of it, then he will achieve it; hence, he will make his own luck and destiny. For Fernando, power to change the current negative family circumstances depends exclusively on himself and his determination to reject conformity. Thus, from a very early age,

Fernando views his family askance, as the title of the novel implies—viewing things from the side—separating himself from a life filled with poverty, violence, and lovelessness, and decides to reject all of it in order to become his own man. After all, for most of his life, Molano faced reproachful looks from strangers, family exclusion, institutional discrimination and stigma, experiences which permeated his writing. However, Molano fought to legitimize his life, and his painful experiences inspired him to create literary works that reflect his misfortune, creativity, and brilliance, and at the same time enrich Colombian literature. As Mauricio Pulecio puts it, “Thanks to a poetic language, Molano built spaces for ethical resistance that dignifies his life and his

40 “Y a mí, por lo menos, no me gustaba. Yo no la quería. Sentado en un bordito de mi pubertad, contemplaba mi cuadro familiar y odiaba el ejemplo de vida que me tocó en suerte” (128). 49 affections, despite the fact that, in the early 1990s, there were very few options to survive in the middle of a language contaminated with hate toward homosexual people, a dehumanizing language, as Judith Butler indicates in her writings” (21).

Molano goes on to depict Fernando as a young adult, in his final years of high school.

There, Molano makes sure to narrate Fernando’s dissatisfaction, his feeling of being trapped, his awareness of feeling asphyxiated, for having to live under his family’s rules. Fernando decides to run away from home because he feels trapped, ruined, and physically mistreated, and because of the family suspicion of his homosexuality:

But, anyway, that was not what had me ruined. It was me. It was my family. It was living

under suspicion. It was confronting the fact that Pedro was gone. It was having to endure

being beaten by my brothers and dad only because they sensed everything (they never said

it to my face, but they sensed everything). It was leaving the house for a few days. It was

being forced to return. It was not being able to flee. (179)41

Fernando feels ruined for having to hide his homosexual identity from the people who are supposed to protect and understand him the most, his family. The passive-aggressive homophobia and the situation at home, starting when his favourite brother, Pedro, leaves the household, makes

Fernando feel abandoned, alone and forces him also to leave home.

Fernando runs away to the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta, a very remote zone in Colombia, where he temporarily exchanges his identity of high school student for that of a farm worker

(jornalero), a person who does heavy physical labour in order to eat, to dress, and to survive.

Perhaps Molano introduces this change in Fernando the character as a way to show maturity, while

41 “Pero, en fin, no era eso lo que me tenía arruinado. Era yo. Era mi familia. Era tener que vivir bajo sospecha. Era afrontar que Pedro se había ido. Era haber tenido que soportar ser golpeado por mis hermanos y por papá solo porque lo intuían todo (nunca me lo decían a la cara, pero lo intuían todo). Era haber tenido que irme de la casa por unos días. Era haber estado obligado a volver. Era no poder huir” (179). 50 also offering some background information into the experience of the working-class. One can see

Molano’s intentions in putting these pieces together and constructing a Bildungsroman through the use of hard experiences that form the child from infancy through adulthood. This is to say that

Molano uses this literary template to make public issues of family instability, the indoctrination of the education system, the physical and mental abuse of children, and the assumption of homosexual identity. Fernando wants to liberate himself, at least temporarily, from the yoke of his family by adopting a new identity, and his yearning for independence and self-discovery are also strategies in Molano’s moral and psychological development of the protagonist.

By bringing up the subject of low-paying farm jobs and the exploitation of working-class farmers, Molano provides some historical context to the “Bonanza Marimbera” (1975-1985), a dark period in Colombian history when a large amount of foreign capital entered the country as a result of the activity of drug gangs cultivating and exporting illegal marijuana. This was a business between clans and families that employed impoverished peasants, and that produced enormous profits for drug traffickers, recognized for their eccentricities, ostentation, violence, and vendettas

(“¡Bonanza Marimbera, Adiós!”). It is here where Molano’s education comes to play as he ties the

“Bonanza Marimbera,” when marijuana plantations were introduced to the country for the first time, with ideas of communism, and the exploitation of the proletariat at the hands of few influential individuals.

With this episode of the character running away, to a region filled with lawlessness, hardship, and misfortune, and by constructing the image of the outsider in terms of education, social isolation, and a clash of values, Molano uses literature to criticize Colombian society. He points out its unjust system of wealth distribution by presenting it as an unequal economic system that exploits the most vulnerable of its citizens. Just as Graeme Harper explains in his Companion

51 to Creative Writing, even if the writer thinks that writing creatively is a relatively structured, formal and educational practice, the author must input his or her own sets of ideas, skills, and knowledge within it, hence bringing something distinctive into play. It is because of the understanding of this highly individualized process that each writer develops his or her style (3-

5). Similarly, it is Molano’s personal and formal understanding of the country that allows him to explore Colombia’s politico-economic disparities and immortalize them in fiction.

When Fernando comments how he tries to learn about such exploitative systems, his formative literary knowledge is sound and comes from classical economic Marxist theory, taken from Karl Marx’s Capital Vol. I., which refers to the circulation of commodities, also known as

C-M-C’, as the starting point of the creation of capital (Fine and Saad-Filho 104). This type of specific knowledge speaks to the author’s university formation, where Molano expresses his interest in the Left and the Colombian Marxist-Leninist guerrilla’s socialist utopian struggle for revolution, a revolution that he will not be part of. Thus, by elaborating on Fernando’s hardship as a working-class farmer, Molano introduces the reader to a social problem and the utopian dream in relation to the exploitation of the worker to achieve the maximum economic benefit for just a few at the top of the social ladder:

I tried to understand all of it, you know: those things of the exploitation of man, of the

bourgeoisie and the proletariat, of the unjust distribution of wealth, of the market economy,

of surplus-value, of the transformation of capital C into C', where C' is greater than C (at

the expense of the fact that misery M is transformed into M', also greater than M, I joked

to myself). (187)42

42 “Intentaba comprender todo aquello. Ya saben: esas cosas de la explotación del hombre por el hombre, de la burguesía y el proletariado, de la distribución injusta de la riqueza, de la economía de mercado, de la plusvalía, de la transformación del capital C en C’, donde C’ es mayor que C (a costa de que la miseria M se transforme en M’, también mayor que M, me decía yo como un chiste.)” (187). 52

With the story of Fernando’s running away, Molano unfolds a more troubling global issue and offers an elaborate argument against economic and social utopias in which socialism and capitalism are presented as equally disadvantageous for the poor and where power and economic prosperity within these economic models are not designed to help them exit poverty. What is more,

Molano identifies these economic and social utopias as the culprits for the farmer’s poverty, exploitation and dependency, hence highlighting that socialist and capitalist theories only care for economic advancement at the cost of social inequality in a country like Colombia which is numb to the suffering and pain of the less fortunate.

Molano here moves to a higher analytical plane, where literature ceases to be just a mental exercise with the sole purpose of the artist’s individualistic self-realization, to one in which he aims to question the exploitative uses of power within the economic systems of oppression, poverty as a tool of servitude, and the accumulation of wealth. The different economic theories seem to be envisaged only to cause misery to the working class. For Molano, a literary author who criticizes society for its economic utopias, whether socialist or capitalist, poverty is at the center of it all and the catalyst for hardship, suffering, and unhappiness (187-188). Fernando protests this poverty, saying that he “could not understand the way people who have a little bit of money, a little bit of power, became a kind of depraved sadists who do not feel the slightest weight on their human conscience when using and humiliating others like beasts” (188).43 As such, Fernando realizes that childhood, innocent and unaware of the hardships of life, is the highest state of happiness.

However, as soon as the child matures and leaves that state of innocence, he or she needs to gain

43 “Pero no podía entender la manera en que las personas que tienen un poco de dinero, un poco de poder, se convertían en una especie de sádicos depravados que no sienten el menor cargo de conciencia humana utilizando a otros y humillándolos como a bestias” (188). 53 responsibility by leaving home, getting a job, forming a family, becoming a slave to society’s rules while renouncing any personal dream, pleasure or happiness.

Although Molano is positively inclined towards socialism as an economic utopia for society, he later realizes that the working class, and especially homosexuals, are seen and treated as inferior by the people who own the means of production, thus eliminating any kind of conviction or devotion Molano had toward socialism as a utopian dream:

As never before, abandoned there in that place, I fell in love with the word “socialism,”

with my faith in the possibility of a change towards a more just world. Except that I had

already been completely disillusioned by that revolution of lies that, supposedly to

achieve this dream, the Left of this country of mine had been promoting for years. (188)44

The disillusionment that Fernando feels toward socialism and capitalism comes from the perception that both economic systems keep their working-class members in poverty, and, more importantly, from a disappointment in the urban guerrilla’s position on homosexuality, which they see as “a despicable bourgeois vice that should be persecuted,” leading the protagonist to comment:

The revolutionary mindset was undermined by the same pseudo-moral and retrograde

radicalism of the ideology that it sought to overcome, and it continued to violate the privacy

and freedom of the people. Mine, for example, because for the left, the love of a man for

another man was nothing more than proof of the moral decadence of capitalist relations, a

despicable bourgeois vice that must be persecuted. […]

So, why should I continue to be attached to a revolution from which I am to be

excluded? I would never stop believing in the revolution, but I lost all illusions about this

44 “Como nunca, allí abandonado en ese lugar, yo me enamoré de la palabra socialismo, de mi fe en la posibilidad de un cambio hacia un mundo más justo. Solo que ya me había desengañado por completo de aquella revolución de mentiras que, supuestamente para conseguirlo, por años venía promoviendo la izquierda en este país mío” (188). 54

one that I got to know from our Left. And I detested the socialists, but I did not stop loving

socialism.46 (191-192)

It is clear that Molano’s disappointment and rejection of socialism came from his personal experience when he joined a university urban-guerrilla cell. There, Fernando learned that leftists in his country did not want a decadent revolutionary homosexual (as they defined it) like him, even though he believed in the utopian idea that socialism implied, within a country like Colombia of the 1990s, which yearned for social and political change.

Molano writes, in the form of a diary entry entitled “April 30,” about the difficulties that

Fernando encounters (e.g., the lack of money and support by his family and society) in order to be able to assist his beloved Adrián with his treatment and hospital bills: “God, how will I get the money? It is Wednesday, and without having to tell him, Adrián has already come up with the same idea, David has suggested that I write something about all the things that have happened to us” (112). It is with the support and help of one of his favourite university professors, David, a character who is also inspired by a real person—university professor David Jiménez—that Adrián and Fernando find in writing the possibility to make some money, by putting their tragic story into words and sharing it with the world. As such, literature is for Molano not only a means to achieve personal recognition and access to some monetary compensation given the various awards the author was granted during his lifetime47 but, more importantly, a cathartic process in which the

46 “El ideario revolucionario estaba minado por el mismo radicalismo seudomoral, retrogrado, de la ideología que pretendía superar, y seguía violentando la intimidad y la libertad de las personas. La mía, por ejemplo, pues para la izquierda, el amor de un hombre hacia otro hombre no era más que una prueba de la decadencia moral de las relaciones capitalistas, un despreciable vicio burgués que deberá ser perseguido. […] Así que, ¿por qué habría de seguir vinculado a una revolución de la que yo estaría excluido? Nunca dejaría de creer en la revolución, pero perdí todas las ilusiones en ésta que había conocido de nuestra izquierda. Y detesté a los socialistas, pero no dejé de amar el socialismo” (191-192). 47 “Un beso de Dick, le valió el mayor reconocimiento literario que obtuvo en vida: el premio de la Cámara de Comercio de Medellín que le otorgó, en 1992, un jurado compuesto por Héctor Abad Faciolince, Carlos José Restrepo y Fernando Soto Aparicio. En 1987 había sido galardonado en el concurso nacional de cuento de Proartes, en Cali. La segunda novela, Vista desde una acera, ganó una beca de Colcultura” (David Jiménez, “Acerca del autor” 7). 55 writer can reflect on the hardships of his and his partner’s life. By portraying some aspects as they happened in real life, this allows Molano the liberty to transform those unfortunate events into something anew. In the end, it is through the process of writing that Molano can change his own life for the better and leave a legacy for future generations.

2.2 Homosexual Identity and Childhood Innocence

Molano uses literature as a tool through which to discover the way he feels about his homosexuality, from the point of view of the child, through the homoerotic characters’ experiences and the exploration of their sexuality. More precisely, Marieth Serrato points out that the Molano’s

“homoerotic condition is evident in all his narrative and poetic work. It is the author’s discursive force that allows the reader to face the theme of sexuality from the point of view of love and feelings of attraction. This fact is what makes Molano’s work different, in that it proposes a unique way of approaching homoeroticism, without any pretense to convince or seeks allies.” Serrato continues with the argument that Molano “differentiates himself from other writers, who have used literary discourse not only to assume their identity but to defend the rights of a marginalized group by society. Fernando Molano, in some way, also joins the defense, but not from a militancy but from the force of feeling and the discovery of love in the construction of the homoerotic subject”

(4).21 I would add that, Molano also uses the child’s perspective of the body, desirability, love, and passion, to explore sexuality without directly labeling him homosexual or gay.

21 “La condición homoerótica del escritor se ve manifiesta en toda su obra narrativa y poética; es la fuerza discursiva del autor la que permite al lector enfrentar el tema sexual desde el amor y el sentimiento. Este hecho es el que hace que la obra de Molano sea diferente, en cuanto propone una forma distinta de abordar la homoeroticidad, sin ninguna pretensión de convencer o buscar aliados. Esto lo diferencia de otros escritores, que se han valido del discurso literario no sólo para asumir su identidad sino para defender los derechos de un grupo marginado por la sociedad. Fernando Molano, de alguna manera, también se une a la defensa, pero no desde la militancia sino desde la fuerza del sentimiento y el descubrimiento del amor en la construcción del sujeto homoerótico” 56

Molano uses the character’s innocence to present homosexual desire and attraction to other boys as something free of pre-conceived social notions or definitions, leaving it to the reader to make his or her own conclusions. As when a very young Fernando confesses his love for a schoolfriend:

I have known for a long time what I’ve felt, but I did not need to know the names to know

that, if the others found out, they would have given me a good thrashing. Somehow the

elders had already taught me that my heart was in La Picota [in prison]. It is not difficult

to understand it: I never saw it in the drawings of my storybooks, nor in those of my Cartilla

Charry [his schoolbook], nor on my television: a boy in love with another boy. (46)48

The way in which Molano uses the image of the child who falls in love with another boy as he begins to discover his homosexual attraction without knowing how to describe it aligns with

Kathryn Bond Stockton’s concept of “the queer child,” 49 and her argument that starting in the twentieth century, children seem to be getting queerer while society is enshrining discursive political ideals of “life and death” in favour of saving the image of the child as entangled with our future. For instance, by not resorting to specific categories (imposed and transplanted from an

English-speaking context) such as “gay,” or “heterosexual,” Molano manages to express the child’s affections, connections, and understanding of the world. He does this through imaginative ways of making sense of his affections and surroundings by using a mixture of colloquial and metaphorical language—without a political emphasis—typical of a middle-class boy like Molano.

At this point, I analyze the literary management that Molano makes of the figure of the queer child.

48 Hacía mucho tiempo sabía yo lo que sentía, pero no necesitaba conocer los nombres para saber que, si los demás se enteraban, me hubieran dado una buena trilla. De alguna manera ya los mayores me habían enseñado que mi corazón estaba en la picota; no es difícil aprenderlo: jamás vi en los dibujos de mis libros de cuentos, ni en los de mi Cartilla Charry, ni en mi televisor, a un niño enamorado de otro niño (46). 49 The concept comes from Stockton’s book, The Queer Child, or Growing Sideways in the Twentieth Century (2014). Here, she argues that “any and every child [is] queer” (3), challenging people to “see children getting queerer in the century that enshrined and protected the child,” the twentieth century (6). 57

As Riley McGuire points out, Stockton does not see the “queer child” as “synonymous of homosexually” (McGuire 66), but rather she attributes it to the inventive, imaginative and creative factors that are within the child and that are not reproductive. To put it in Stockton’s own words:

Perhaps this circumstance of the gay child leads the child to metaphor, which itself is a

sideways accretion: the act of imagining oneself as something else. In fact, as I argue in

chapter 2, which explain time in relation to metaphor, theorist of childhood need to engage

literary indirections and linguistic seductions (such as we find in imaginative fictions) that

do what children are often shown as doing: approach their destinations, delay, swerve, delay;

ride on a metaphor they tend to make material and so imagine relations of their own. My dog

is my wife, my dolly is my child. Not uncommonly, children as shown as having a knack of

metaphorical substitution, letting one object stand for another, by which they reconceive

relations to time (see Stockton 15).

Again following McGuire, and drawing directly from Stockton claims that the queer child represents the concept of “backward birth” (or Freud’s “delayed reaction”), where the queer or gay child comes into existence as an adult and through a deep-thinking process of self-analysis (also framed as “arrested development” an diagnosis used to described homosexual immaturity) and the conscious recollection and remembrance of one’s past, hence, the death of the straight metaphorical is achieved in order for the gay or homosexual to be born (Stockton 15-22; McGuire

66).

As such, through the subsequent analysis of personal experiences (what Stockton terms

“future retroaction” [“Feeling” 304]), Molano highlights the queer child as a figure of the future and death: a symbol that takes shape only in the future after the end of childhood and after the realization that heteronormative straightness is death. Molano constructs such love stories through

58 future retroaction that aim at normalizing homosexual relationships, for those who need to or want to read such type of literature. Lee Edelman argues in Homographesis, where he is inspired by

Derrida’s famous ideas on writing as a sign of différance, that “homosexual identity” has been constructed by heterosexuals as something that can be easily read on the body, such that this easily inscribed homosexual, in itself, can be regulated by its incorporation within Western traditions and writing. Therefore, “homosexual writing” as it has been classically constructed, says Edelman, from the point of view of the dominant heterosexual culture, has been labelled a parasitic and sterile mode of social depiction (9). Similarly, Molano’s creative ideas and queer writing in relation to Stockton’s “backward birth” of the child, which is in tension with Edelman’s concept of “reproductive futurism,” indicates specific after-death characteristics in the realization that queerness is born in adulthood and only after the straight child is no longer in existence.

By describing a child as having homosexual affections, Molano gives the queer child a sort of unique position that allows his existence, life experiences, and affections to be possible. Molano subverts the imposition of the heteronormative future established by a patriarchal society, hence forging a space, a voice and storyline for the queer child. Molano’s supportive perspective with the queer child is a crucial example of how inclusive writing can lead to the acceptance of the other and of what is different within literature and queer theory (Cornejo 149-150). The enormous potential that the figure of the queer child can have in the education of young people is that, by allowing other forms of human affections to be put forward, regardless of orientation, a more just and tolerant society can be achieved. On the other hand, Molano’s figure of the queer child acknowledges his vulnerability by narrating traumatic life experiences (e.g., rape, beatings, and negligence) and by clarifying: “without knowing the names” (e.g., love, passion, and attraction), the queer child can be the focus of violence, affection, and appeal. This idea reveals that the cultural

59 forms in which violence against homosexuals is perpetuated are part of the irrational construction of current hegemonic masculine identity and discourses.

2.3 A Dedicatory to Diego: Lover, Muse, and Companion

Diego was Fernando Molano’s lover, partner, source of inspiration, and companion in many of the author’s texts. Diego is called Hugo in the first pages of “A Kiss by Dick,” pages that were written with deep mourning and as a homage to his memory. “All My Things in Your Pockets,” a book of poems that Molano managed to publish a few months before his death, is the poetic account of his love for Diego and is also dedicated to him. Additionally, Molano’s posthumous work, “View

From a Sidewalk,” a literary piece that presents the love between two characters, Fernando and

Adrián, is also a tribute to Molano’s partner. So there is no doubt that Diego became, not only

Molano’s muse, a source of inspiration for creating all the characters that were modeled after him, but also Molano’s hope, refuge, and companion when dealing with the virus. Even after death,

Diego was still Molano’s primary stimulus for writing. He felt guilty for being alive, and even when Molano found other people to love, Diego was still present, like a ghost that never entirely went away. Molano made sure that within his writing and literary work, Diego would be a central figure of importance and relevance, comparable to that of the author himself.

In the postface to “View From a Sidewalk,” with the ease of those who can look to the past when they have met the author, Abad Faciolince analyzes Molano’s work as a trilogy:

Molano’s three works make up a kind of complementary trilogy that narrates a world.

Somehow each of his books needs the others to be understood thoroughly. The book of

poems, in particular, works as a hinge between the first novel [“A Kiss by Dick”] and the

posthumous novel [“View From a Sidewalk”], completing and explaining many of the

meanings of the two books of prose. (“Postfacio” 254)51

Abad's retrospective look allows him to realize that Molano’s three texts are really three parts of the same project; a continuous work in which different names are combined into one: Hugo and

Leonardo in “A Kiss by Dick”; in “View From a Sidewalk,” Adrián; and in “All My Things in

Your Pockets,” Diego. All three of Molano’s texts work as a sort of trinity that refers to a single true love: Diego. It is also the condensation of a whole lifetime together that had to be put into words, in a minimal amount of time, and under challenging circumstances, because Molano and

Diego were fighting against time and death.

In “View From a Sidewalk,” Molano presents a queer reading of one of the writers who most influenced his work, and one of the most popular authors in Western literature: Charles

Dickens. Molano’s “alternative reading” of Dickens intrigues me, not only because of how inspiring it was for the Colombian author but because it challenges conventional narratives about the English writer. With the image of Mark Lester, and the kiss between Dick and Oliver, comes a dizzying reading of Dicken’s novel. The character of Fernando reads and interprets a scene that for years has been part of the literary and filmic tradition of the West without having awakened, at least publicly, any suspicion. Fernando takes from it what for many is not possible: the love between two children. For years, for many of us, those interested in this type of detail were not aware that in one of the most important works of Western culture, such a reading could be possible.

However, it is Molano, personified as a character in one of his novels, and as an attentive and

51 “Ahora estas tres obras conforman una especie de trilogía complementaria para narrar un mundo. De algún modo cada uno de estos libros necesita de los otros para entenderse a fondo. El poemario en particular, como una bisagra entre su primera novela y la novela póstuma, completa y explica muchos de los sentidos de los dos libros de narrativa” (254). 61 analytical observer, who offers such a reading, therefore rescuing from invisibility those moments of homoerotic importance imperceptible to many.

This type of active reading has been called “queer reading,” as noted by Holly Furneaux in

Queer Dickens, a study of queer elements in the work of Dickens. In the eyes of Molano (and in the eyes of the young Fernando character), the relationship between Dick and Oliver was as valid as any other relationship. In other words, their love for each other is as valid as any other type of love. The kiss between the two children is proof of this validity. However, Molano is in the minority when seeing the homoerotic interaction in the kiss. Yet it is this that prompts Molano’s literary machinery into motion and creation. As Molano says: “And all my life I kept thinking how nice it would be to be able to write a story, in which two children loved each other. And one of them will remember Dick” (94). It is as if, by rescuing Dick’s kiss with Oliver, a detail ignored by many, Molano also wants to use literature as a means of rescuing and documenting his own story, leaving a record of two similar homoerotic stories intertwined forever.

Author and professor Rutter-Jensen, one of the critics to have explored Molano’s work the most, notes that in “A Kiss by Dick,” even though HIV is not directly mentioned, the virus is covertly present (“Silencio y violencia social,” 476). In Molano’s earliest work, Rutter-Jensen finds an unmentioned and unseen correlation between the virus and the novel. Equally important, both “A Kiss by Dick” and “View From a Sidewalk” are the result of and dedicated to a dead

“friend.” Although in “View From a Sidewalk” the HIV is mentioned explicitly only a few times, four times to be exact, the correlation and reference to HIV and AIDS is much clearer in Molano’s posthumous novel, perhaps given the author’s proximity to his death. The first time the virus is named is when Fernando is asked by the doctor to take an HIV test after having taken Adrián to the hospital:

The same day they admitted Adrián, [the doctor] asked if I had already been tested. I told

him no, and that, besides, it was not necessary, because it is clear that I also have the tenant

[the virus] inside, considering that Adrián and I have been together for four years (and only

God knows how many times we have made love in all this time.)

-It's not obvious, he told me. There have been cases of couples in which one of the two

does not have the virus. It is not known why, but it is so. (80)52

One can sense that, even after the doctor’s explanation about how for some same-sex couples, one partner shows physical manifestations of being infected with HIV while the other does not,

Molano’s personal and challenging experience with the virus allows him to have a particular understanding of the illness. Therefore, he is positive that he has contracted the virus.

The second time the virus is disclosed in “View From a Sidewalk” is when Fernando and

Adrián are discussing why gay men seem to be the only group affected and infected with the virus.

For Adrián, even if it is said jokingly, HIV infection has to do with the fact that homosexual men are prone to promiscuity; therefore, causing the contagion of the virus among themselves:

- But it’s because of promiscuity that this disease goes the way it does, Fernando.

- Yes, I know ... But, Adrián: then, why does my father not have the virus, nor my brothers,

or yours?

- ...

52 “El mismo día en que internaron a Adrián, me preguntó si yo me había hecho ya la prueba. Le he dicho que no y que, además, no me parecía necesario, pues es evidente que también yo tengo al inquilino, si consideramos que Adrián y yo llevamos cuatro años juntos (y solo Dios sabe cuántas veces nos hemos hecho el amor en todo este tiempo.) -No es evidente- me dijo él-. Se han reportado parejas en las que uno de los dos no tiene el virus. No se sabe porque, pero así es” (80). 63

- Or García Márquez: García Márquez does not have it, as far as I know. And remember

that he says that we are all born with our fucks counted; and if we let one go, that fuck is

lost.

- See then: we already found the culprit. (86)53

Here, both protagonists are trying to find a reason and a culprit as to how gay men get infected with HIV. Adrián concludes that promiscuity among gay men is to blame, and he is not entirely wrong (as unprotected sex one of the main causes of its transmission), but then Fernando points out that no heterosexual men they know have the virus. Not even Gabriel García Márquez, who is known, respected, and admired worldwide— García Marquez, the Colombian Nobel prizewinner who wrote proudly about male promiscuity as something intrinsic to straight men. Molano therefore contextualizes the issue of HIV contagion among gay men within a more global backdrop that includes all men in the conversation. However, it seems that for Fernando and Adrián, the only group being targeted and paying the consequences of the virus are homosexuals. They feel like direct casualties of the attack; they feel vulnerable, the victims, and humorously find in García

Márquez, a world-renowned figure, a possible culprit.

The third mention of HIV in “View From a Sidewalk” is in a diary entry entitled “June

15.” Here, the narrator lets the reader know of the deterioration of Adrián’s health, as he is described as almost being a cadaver-like figure lying on his hospital bed:

Adrián has lost a lot of weight; all you can see is his poor bones. But he does not stop

looking beautiful. It is depressing. He is dying of a virus that has undermined all his

53 “Pero por culpa de la promiscuidad es que esta enfermedad va como va, Fernando. - Sí, yo se… Pero, Adrián: entonces, ¿Por qué mi papá no tiene el virus, ni mis hermanos, o los suyos? - … - O García Márquez: García Márquez no lo tiene, que yo sepa. Y acuérdese de que él dice que todos nacemos con los polvos contados; y que polvo que dejamos pasar, polvo que se pierde. - Vea pues: ya encontramos al culpable” (86). 64

defenses, and that’s all he knows ... This is so new that the doctors clearly don’t know how

to act or where to look. It is not their fault; the diseases that can appear are very strange,

and it is difficult to detect what causes them with the usual methods. According to all the

tests that have been carried out so far, Adrián has nothing. (195)54

Here, Adrián’s body has deteriorated as he fights an invisible foe. His bones are showing, and now he has the appearance of a cadaver-like figure; the deterioration of his body and the effects of the virus appear in detail. Fernando is frustrated at not being able to do something for his partner. And, he does not blame the doctors because, at the time, in the 90s, there was little they could have done with the instruments and the knowledge they had available. But beyond Molano’s concern about how they seemed to be on the losing side of the battle against the HIV virus, the reality of the illness is much more complicated, in that he forgets to include other groups who could have also been at risk such as women, transgender, bisexual, and other queer people. This information is more readily available now after many years has passed since Molano’s death. Nevertheless, HIV prevention and treatment have not improved considerably in Colombia in the last two decades.55

The fourth and final time that the virus is mentioned in the novel has to do with how

Fernando and Adrian are thinking of writing a book about their own tragic story with HIV. They

54 “Adrián ha perdido mucho peso, casi está sólo en sus pobres huesos. Pero no deja de verse hermoso. Es deprimente. Está muriendo por un virus que le ha minado todas sus defensas, y es lo único que sabe […] Esto del sida es tan nuevo que los médicos no saben con claridad cómo actuar, cómo buscar. No es su culpa; las enfermedades que pueden producirse son muy extrañas y es difícil detectar lo que las causa con los métodos habituales. Según todos los exámenes que hasta hoy se han practicado, Adrián no tiene nada” (195). 55 See the study by Maria Cecilia Zea and her team, “Armed Conflict, Homonegativity and Forced Internal Displacement: Implications for HIV among Colombian Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Individuals,” which notes that “In addition to displacement as a result of conflict, GBT [gay, bisexual and transgender] individuals have also been displaced by homonegativity and ‘social cleansing,’ a phenomenon that aims to rid society of ‘undesirable’ elements” (Zea et al., 2013). Additionally, Zea and et. al. point out that “Displaced GBT individuals constitute a population of great social relevance because the group carries the triple stigma of being internally displaced, homosexual or transgender, and economically disadvantaged. Moreover, this group remains largely invisible.” (Zea et al., 2013). UNAIDS has claimed that the HIV epidemic has mostly affected men who have sex with men (2006; 2010;2016). A study of men who have sex with men in Bogotá found an HIV prevalence of 20% (Rubio Mendoza, Martha L., et al. 2015). Despite these high rates, the epidemic remains understudied in this part of the world (Zea et. al. 789). 65 are both in favor of writing a book and telling their story for others to learn from their experience and, if possible, help alleviate their precarious financial situation. Fernando comments: “So, I don’t know. Here thinking like a merchant, I tell myself that, if we wrote a kind of novel that talks about a life like ours... Nobody will care about this story, we already know. What interest could such an ordinary story attract? Unless it were told with wonderful writing, of course. But, even the writing were bad, we add to the story the issue of the virus, and that sordid little thing called queerness that (thus added as it is fashionable) constitutes what is called a current topic ... I don’t know; maybe the book could sell. Maybe it could be a little best-seller” (113).56

It is fascinating how Molano, true to his personal knowledge of literature and the market, anticipates and predicts the popularity of his literary creations. He discusses the need to write something that can help others like them (a story with a homosexual focus), to help them understand the battle, and to prepare them for what it means to live as an HIV positive gay man.

Here, literature for Molano works as an instruction manual, as a guidebook filled with painful but authentic experiences, based on the real life of two people, that can inspire and guide others in similar situations. Likewise, Molano downplays the impact of writing a novel that only relies on facts (statistics and figures), on reality, and knows he needs to employ other mechanisms, such as figurative and comedic language, that might capture the imagination of the reader.

Molano adds that, when and if the story is rendered with excellent writing, a tale of the real struggles concerning the virus and some elements of queerness could garner some prestige and fame. One can sense that Molano is also mocking the fact that a writer would have to resort to

56 “Entonces, no sé, aquí pensando como mercader, me digo que, si escribiéramos una especie de novela, hablando de una vida como esta nuestra… A nadie le importará la historia, ya sabemos. ¿Qué puede interesar una historia tan corriente? A menos que se cuente con una maravilla de escritura, claro. Pero si, aun siendo una escritura pobre, a la historia le añadimos el asunto del virus, y ese asuntillo sórdido del mariqueísmo que (así sumado como es de moda) constituye lo que se llama todo un tema de actualidad… No sé, tal vez se vendiera el libro. Tal vez sería un pequeño best-seller” (113). 66 adding devices such as dying of HIV, a marketing strategy that uses one’s sexuality and tragedy, in order to be famous and make a lasting impression. But what Molano knows for sure is that his books need to be authentic, real, and address what matters to him. And that is what happens to

Molano’s literary trilogy. Each of Molano’s books became a cult novel after the writer’s death. It is now hard to find an original copy of any of Molano’s books, as they are cult classics in high demand. In one way or another, Molano was very prophetic of his work, by not only immortalizing his love story and relationship with Diego but also by making a name for himself in the conservative Colombian literary sphere.

In conclusion, “View From a Sidewalk” contains throughout a multiplicity of striking factors of importance for Molano, such as the impact that poverty, discrimination, and prejudice had on him for being who he was. Writing about his personal experience grants Molano the possibility and freedom to reflect upon this triple marginalization he and Diego had to suffer in life. Literature also lets Molano juxtapose his own life experiences with his literary creations.

Literature then works as a medium of agency for Molano, granting him time and space to reflect on his accomplishments and misfortune, and allowing him to exert control over his own narrative and the way people would remember him after his death. Further, literature allows Molano to reflect on subjects such as love, gender roles, and traditional family values within the Colombian national context.

Literature also allows Molano to rediscover the ways he feels and thinks about his homosexuality, but through the literary tools of character creation, from the point of view of the infant self and as an adult, exploring complex issues about sexuality, eroticism, and innocence.

From the conservative Colombian context, Molano’s work proposes, as Marieth Serrato notes, “a new approach to homoerotic and queer writing, and it does so by using language free of pretenses

67 and by showing freely who he is. I would add that, for Molano, the fact that he narrates from a double point of view, that is, from the perspective of the child and the adult, allows the author absolute mastery in his writing. He can explore topics such as the child’s self-expression, and the infant’s love, sexuality, and passion, without having to be overly political, explicit, or disturbing.

Nevertheless, Molano’s “View From a Sidewalk” is charged with political language and discourse because it has to do with the many social injustices that he suffered as a consequence of his homosexuality, poverty, and HIV/AIDS illness. “View From a Sidewalk” is also about HIV, and the virus is mentioned explicitly four times by Molano to leave a mark of the disease in his writing.

The correlation and reference to HIV and AIDS is much clearer in Molano’s posthumous novel.

Again, the importance of Molano’s literary creation lies beyond the need to name and to intervene in political praxis at a discursive level, as Rutter-Jensen points out, but in recognizing the materiality that Molano gives to the virus such as in “View From a Sidewalk.” Moreover, through

Adrián's body, the written materiality contributes to the understanding, not only of the discursive and metaphorical but also of the need effectively to prevent the virus.

Chapter 3: Poetry as a Testimonial Agent of Sexual Desire and Personal Anxiety Toward

Illness and Death in “All My Things in Your Pockets”

Todas mis cosas en tus bolsillos (“All My Things in Your Pockets,” 1997) is Fernando Molano’s book of poems, published a few months before he died and dedicated to his lover Diego. Here,

Molano explores recurrent themes such as the mutual love, attraction, and devotion of one man to another. He uses homoeroticism, the sexual pleasure of the body, and the proximity to death as his catalyst for writing. Molano provides concise examples of deeply personal situations that are turned into poetry, which seems to be organized chronologically and narrated with the naturalness of everyday situations. That is, Molano’s poetry documents the various experiences—across time—of a narrator whose point of view is at times boyish, later that of an adolescent, and in the end that of an adult with a mature and openly sexualized perspective. I argue that in “All My

Things in Your Pockets,” Molano takes on a role much like a painter or a filmmaker, with which he can construct and develop, with the help of lyric writing and the use of cinematic language, an erotic image of passion and seduction that contrasts with that of loneliness and expectancy.

Molano’s poetic perspective is distinguished by the fact that, at first, the narrator is an eyewitness to the story, taking the position of a curious, even voyeuristic individual who does not get involved, but documents what happens around him. As the poetic narration progresses, however, the poetic voice starts to take part in the action, and later takes center stage: the narrator becomes one of the main characters. Another central element of “All My Things in Your Pockets” is its sexualized narrative style and the restless and inquisitive nature of the poetic voice. Molano treats his subject matter with a curious eye, to construct, develop, and put together a compelling story from within his cosmology. Molano’s ability to convey a story through his poetry lies in the fact that the reader gets the impression that he or she may know information—know an intimate

69 secret—about Molano’s world. He sees a boy urinate by a tree, admires the sensuality of a couple dancing together, and hopes to be trapped in his lover’s dying body.

In other words, “All My Things in Your Pockets” contains a confessional approach to poetry, set against the urban backdrop of the city of Bogotá, which reflects on the narrator’s distinctive experiences, captured through personalized nuances of the senses (sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste), giving the reader a palpable sense of intimacy and honesty. It is through the senses that Molano’s poetry projects a vision of love, affection, and emotion, thus humanizing and generating empathy towards the characters and their experiences. Although most of Molano’s poetry makes explicit reference to homosexual relationships, it does not remain there and exalts the validity and the need for such links to be discussed, respected and made visible. Molano’s poetry (alongside his other literary work) empowers the study of this subject matter. Molano uses literature as an act of defiance that aims at sharing intimate details of a remarkable life—as the voyeuristic, nonconformist, rebel, lover and literary connoisseur—to a reader who desires to understand the person behind the writer.

“All My Things in Your Pockets” came together and was published by the University of

Antioquia, in 1997, with great difficulty. Its dissemination was the result of the hard work, persistence, and gallantry of many of Molano’s friends, colleagues, and former teachers. The book’s emergence was full of problems because the author was already very ill from AIDS, and his friends and collaborators wanted him to see it finished while he was still alive. Hector Abad

Faciolince, who also supported the publication of this book, comments:

The publication of the poems “All Your Things in My Pockets” [sic.] was edited by the

University of Antioquia, as well as by several employees of its printing press, who worked

overtime to get the the book printed. They even had to get a designer willing to work for

free (skipping the bureaucratic paperwork of public entities) and in a short time: Molano

followed the publication the book step by step, from the assembling of its cover to the back

cover text. (Abad, 11)57

Juan Felipe Torres-Barrios interviews one of Molano’s friends, Ana Cox, who comments on the state of Molano’s health when they were helping to edit the collection:

When we were finishing the process of “All My Thing in Your Pockets,” Fernando already

had enough symptoms, we were no longer talking about HIV but of AIDS evolving in his

body, by then he already had fevers, he had cancer, he had sarcoma, he had spots all over

him. (Torres, 2018, min.5: 20)58

Molano’s friends and colleagues played an essential part in putting the collection together and making “All My Things in Your Pockets” a reality. They not only faced monetary and time constraints, but also had to work fast because Fernando’s health was deteriorating.

A few of the core elements of “All My Things in Your Pockets” can be found in the way it deals with subjects of death, sickness, solitude, and loneliness. These are registered in many images and in the sadness expressed by the narrator. Molano uses literature as a confessional agent that offers him the license to express feelings of loneliness, sexual fantasy, family abuse, passion and illness, poems that are heavily inspired by the work of French poet and screenwriter Jacques

Prévert (1900-1977).59 Molano shows himself to be a connoisseur of Western literature. Literature

57 “La publicación de los poemas Todas tus cosas en mis bolsillos, fue editada por la Universidad de Antioquia, así como varios empleados de su imprenta. Ellos trabajaron horas extras para poder sacar el libro impreso y hasta hubo que conseguir una diseñadora dispuesta a trabajar gratis (saltándose los papeleos burocráticos de las entidades públicas) y en tiempo reducido: Molano siguió paso a paso la edición del libro, desde el calzoncillo de la cubierta hasta el texto de la contracarátula” (Abad, 2011, p.11). 58 “Cuando está lo de Todas mis cosas en tus bolsillos en proceso, Fernando ya tiene bastantes síntomas donde ya no estamos hablando de VIH sino de SIDA evolucionando en su cuerpo, entonces ya él tenía fiebres, ya le había dado cáncer, ya le había dado sarcoma, las manchitas ya le habían dado” (Torres, 2018, min.5:20). 59 The background for the understanding of Prévert’s work was taken from Marc Mancini’s “Jacques Prévert: Poetic Elements in His Scripts and Cinematic Elements in His Poetry,” which focuses on the poet’s cinema and poetry. 71 provides a channel to express his sexuality and sexual phantasies in relation to pain, pleasure, and sex while also questioning social taboos and proscriptions. Writing becomes a medium through which Molano can express his most basic and complex human emotions, showing his ability to create questions and formulate answers. The poems range from the relatively straightforward and innocent as in “El que se sienta al lado de mi pupitre,” which reflects on a boy’s infatuation with another classmate, to the more complex, as as in “V.I.H” (“HIV”), which reflects on terminal illness, the enfeebled body, and the moment when death comes and gives its final blow.

This chapter has three sections that follow the sequence and structure of “All My Things in Your Pockets.” It starts with the analysis of one of the opening poems, “Desde mi ventana”

(“From My Window”), which speaks of the experience of adolescence. Here Molano employs literature as an instrument of testimony and escapism, where he confesses to all sorts of experiences and difficulties associated with growing up. Molano also employs writing to explore and express some intimate facets of his sexuality, where the narrator is presented as coy at first, but who later takes full advantage of his adult life to express his emotions. The narrator of “From

My Window” watches the action from afar, as an eyewitness, a character who wants to capture the beauty and reveal the mysteries of the male body, but without getting too involved in the action.

Later, in poems such “Hace tres semanas no como nada en mis recreos, y le he robado un dinero a mi padre” (“For Three Weeks I Haven’t Eaten During My Breaks, and I Stole Money from My Father”) and “Sweet D/S,” Molano presents a confessional narrator who rejects the conservative notions of parenthood, upbringing, and sexuality. He is someone who explores his sexuality through erotic fantasies of pain and pleasure, sadomasochism, and domination (i.e., master-slave interaction), acting upon his sexual phantasies by concretely partaking in the action.

Finally, I analyze “Cuando leímos LA MUERTE DE IVÁN ILICH, Diego decía” (“When we read

THE DEATH OF IVÁN ILICH, Diego said”) and “V.I.H” (“HIV”), where we see a contemplative narrator and his feelings of anxiety in relation to the permanence and inevitability of death, life after death, the corruption of the body voiced through emotions of loss, acceptance and hope, and the persistence of desire and libido while living with AIDS.

3.1 The Voyeuristic Poet: Writing Yourself into the Story

The first section of “All My Things in Your Pockets” explores sexual desire, homoeroticism, and solitude through the voyeuristic eyes—and senses—of a contemplative narrator who works to insert himself within the action. Here, the narrator, of unknown age, watches, from a distance, two young adolescent boys. Through this first section of the text, the narrator becomes an eyewitness to the action, even a voyeur, someone who mostly observes and witnesses what is in front of him but keeps his distance, perhaps because he is afraid to get involved, or maybe because physical separation is what he desires. It is as if the narrator wants to recreate an honest representation by marking his distance from the action with what he desires. Even though the poetic voice is somewhat transparent about his impulses, he tends to play coy, concealing his true feelings for the boys he observes. With regards to the narrator’s partaking in the action, his interventions are minimal, demonstrating that he prefers to participate by gazing over and imagining interactions that are charged with sexual innuendo, and not acting upon his desires.

“Desde mi ventana” (“From My Window”) features two “silent and docile” boys who are imagined to be in love. These boys are condemned by their mothers to stop their interaction, that is, to stop flirting with each other on the street. Interestingly, Molano frames the action of the poem by using strategies of implicit meaning contained in cinematic language by directly showing the love and romance of these two boys who otherwise could be interpreted as sharing a moment together. Furthermore, the narrative voice chooses to decide that the meaning of their interaction

73 is love and not friendship. Yet Molano’s poetic voice resides in a third character, a first-person narrator who recounts the action from afar. The narrator is physically removed from the boys and only watches and documents what happens between them. As such, the narrator takes on the role of the voyeur, a person who enjoys watching and admiring others, someone whose pleasure arises from observing and commenting on the experiences of others.

One of the key elements of Fernando Molano’s poetry, which is borrowed from the cinematic language of film, is the use of explicit meaning, a desire to employ realistic effects in poetry based on experimental form makes the action seem as true to life as possible. The narrator carefully shows a controlled picture where the boys’ interactions, their reactions in relation to their mothers and what they can observe from the window, are craftily put together. Indeed, one could say that Molano wants to be perceived as the poet of everyday experience based on his own relationships, family environment, and background. But while it is based on the autobiographical,

Molano’s poetry also has multiple poetic and literary conventions that speak for themselves.

“From My Window” breaks the action—the characters are separated in space by verse— into three stanzas. At the same time, it summarizes Molano’s trilogy by referencing all of his literary works. In the first section, the boys are physically disconnected from the “ladies” who call for them, who are obstacles to the boy’s desire as depicted by the narrator. In the second section, the narrator envisages an erection, under the boy’s pants, as the result of their lusty interactions.

This makes of the poetic voice an unnoticed accomplice figure with a highly active sexual imagination. Finally, the poem’s third and final stanza is about the narrator’s reaction, sexual attraction and overall awareness of the boys.

The poem opens as follows:

At the voices of their ladies silent

and docile

As the condemned usually are

from the edge of the sidewalk

they lift their butts

two boys in love60

From the outset, the narrator depicts the boys in contrast to their mothers. He imagines himself as a witness to the development of a romance, a spell broken only by the authoritative figure of the mother, a shout, vocalized by the “ladies.” We might imagine that the mother is yelling “Get inside the house now,” but Molano’s rewrites it as “At the voices of their ladies,” to show some decorum or ironic reverence.

The ladies, the mothers, are represented as authority figures, driving a wedge between these two boys, who are in love but cannot escape the influence of others. The poem thus presents the boys as prisoners subjugated under their custodian’s power, “silent and docile” like two prison inmates. With the phrase, “from the edge of the sidewalk,” Molano is also alluding to his own novel “View From a Sidewalk,” reminding the reader of a possible alternative reading, in which he himself would be one of the boys, as in the character of Fernando in “View From a Sidewalk.”

If that is the case, the narrator in “From My Window” separates himself from the action, possibly because he remembers, now as an adult, what he lived as a child, echoing the love story of

Leonardo and Adrián or the love affair of Molano and Diego.

60 “A la voz de sus señoras silenciosos y dóciles como suelen los condenados del borde del sardinel levantan sus traseros dos chicos enamorados” 75

Molano’s first sexualized euphemism appears concerning the weight of the boy’s behinds in the line, “They lift their butts.” The verb “to lift” denotes a certain heaviness—an erotic intensity—that reflects the narrator’s focus of his sexual desire on the boy’s behinds. By making the boys’ butts the poem’s focal point, Molano gives importance to the boys and their buttocks, boys who are in love but defy their mothers, fetishizing their behinds. It is the boys’ butts, and their rebellion against authority, that seduce and arouse Molano. The poem continues:

And hidden behind the cars

almost reluctantly

they are joined by the farewell:

under their pants the desire

stalks like a bandit

the youngsters

mired in a hug61

Molano marks the boy’s sexual passion, in a homoerotic and concealed way, by placing the boys’ interaction behind cars. They want to escape their mothers’ gaze and influence, and for a moment they do, but they cannot evade the narrator’s voyeuristic gaze. The desire of these two boys to stay together by defying authority is represented in the closeness of their farewell, an action that makes their desire more noticeable under their pants, seen in the explicit language used by the author which directs the audience to imagine such physical reaction. The boys’ sexual desire must be

61 “Y ocultos tras de los autos casi al desgano los une la despedida: bajo sus pantalones el deseo acecha como un bandido a los jovencitos sumidos en un abrazo” 76 hidden from the prying eyes of others, but the boys cannot hide it from the narrator who watches their clandestine interactions and who also imagines what is under their pants:

Sitting at the door of my house

without looking at me

they pass in front of me

they offer me the backs

of their dirty jeans

I think, God!

and my afternoon is bewitched by their pockets

with their steps ...

Lord: what do they carry in their

Rear

Pockets

those boys? 62

The narrator now includes himself in the poem and its action. He has changed places, and he is

“sitting at the door of his house,” giving him a new vantage point on what is going on. In other words, he has moved from the window to the door, and with this movement in space, he has become a more complicit eyewitness to the unfolding action, and the hidden passion of these two

62 “Sentado a la puerta de mi casa sin mirarme frente a mí pasan me ofrecen sus espaldas sobre el mugre de sus bluyines yo pienso ¡Dios! y mi tarde se hechiza entre sus pliegues con sus pasos… Señor: ¿qué llevan en sus bolsillos Traseros los muchachos?” 77 youngsters. The boys are described as “offering their backs” to the narrator, which means that they do not look at him at all; they do not care that he watches them. However, in the eyes of the narrator, their backs are an offering to him, a sensualized gift that inflames his sexual fantasy, a fetishized offering that leads him (and the reader) to a focal point. The narrator is not offended or sidetracked by the boy’s reluctant and avoidance behaviour. On the contrary, he sees it as a gift because, in his mind, their buttocks belong to him, as do their dirty pockets, which in Molano’s cosmology means the boys’ dreams, desire, poverty, passion, lust, and love.

There is a moment in “A Kiss by Dick” at which Felipe comments on the sexual tension and desire toward Leonardo when they are walking around on the streets of Bogotá: “Then we were playing tunnels in front of the Javeriana University when I score a goal to tie the game, and we keep walking with our hands in our pockets” (51; emphasis added).63 The characters hide their hands in their pockets out of shyness but also to hide their sexual desire from the prying eyes of others. The image is re-used with this book’s title, “All My Things in Your Pockets,” aligned with the verse where the narrator asks: “Lord: what do they carry in their rear pockets?” Here, Molano directly questions the content of the boy’s pockets, as if he did not know its content; when in fact, in Molano’s cosmology, the pockets materialize the boy’s frustrations, sexual tension, and their fantasies. In other words, the pockets symbolize all the sexualized utopia that must be hidden away from most meddling eyes so as to keep safe and in control.

When the author questions God about the contents of the rear pockets, he concludes that, whatever the contents are, they must be of divine origin, something magical that has the power to bewitch a person’s afternoon. Further, the folds, which demarcate the young men’s backsides, are elaborated in the arousal and sexual desire of the narrator. This sexual desire is framed and signaled

63 “Entonces nos quedamos jugando túneles frente a la Javeriana, hasta que yo le hago uno para quedar empatados; y seguimos andando con las manos en los bolsillos” (51). 78 by the pockets and dirt of the jeans that resemble paths to guide the narrator to find himself, to name his sexuality. Molano uses the masculine article “el” with “mugre,” rather than the feminine

“la,” which would be grammatically correct. In doing so, Molano continues with the masculine ideal of his poem, where the masculine figure, that is, the boys as muse, the masculine dirt, and the figurative language, and the author himself as the creator, are elements in Molano’s trilogy that contain the homoerotic desire of the poem. A feminine figure such as “la mugre” would align with the mother figure and her voice, elements that are a turn-off for the narrator and work against this cosmology. The feminine figure goes against what is being proposed by Molano in his homoerotic trinity: the boys, the poetic explicit language, and the poet himself. Molano’s masculine elements constitute a determined and distinct picture of empathy and emotion for the reader to visualize.

3.2 Poetry as a Confessional Agent for Solitude and Sexual Fantasy

I now move to “Hace tres semanas no como nada en mis recreos, y le he robado un dinero a mi padre (“For Three Weeks I Haven’t Eaten During My Breaks, and I Stole My Father’s Money”) and “Sweet D/S.” Here, I analyze the author’s confessional intention in which the senses deliver images of sexual desire in relation to male beauty and the buying of sex, sexual liberation, and fantasy, and finally, sexual fetishes and taboos. With such revealing and provocative verses,

Molano makes of his poetry a confessional agent where he can convey a personal and intimate perspective on issues of solitude, loneliness, and the difficulty of achieving an honest human interaction with others. “All My Things in Your Pockets” presents a writer who is perpetually looking for the good in people, for kindness in the gestures of strangers. Molano’s poetry yearns to find and reveal the best that people have to offer—just like any other hopeful believer in the human agency would—but, in the end, Molano is disillusioned when he discovers that humans

79 tend to disappoint. Yet however much Molano’s poetry evidences a disenchantment with people

(and with God), it is never disappointed by love, passion, sex, or writing.

With “For Three Weeks” and “Sweet D/S,” Molano marks an awakening in the behaviour and direct participation of the narrator in the story, creating a sort of mise-en-scène that aims at creating and expressing a mood of verisimilitude and believability in the eyes of the reader. In

“Desde mi Ventana” the narrator had played a voyeuristic role where he spied on other character’s sexual interactions. But with these two poems, Molano’s narrator participates in the action, becoming the main character and achieving a feeling of intimacy, honesty, and arousal to set the mood and disposition of the poem. On the other hand, Molano also allows a sort of awakening in the narrator who not just watches from afar, but comes out to challenge typical ideals of love, kindness, and sexuality in terms of social expectations versus hard reality, giving his poetry credibility. He understands that humans are complex sexual and emotional creatures. Therefore,

Molano uses literature to explore sexual taboos, human interactions and sexual fantasies concerning binaries of honesty and insincerity, pain and pleasure, fantasy and reality, master and slave, and passion and apathy. It would be a simplification to say that Molano’s poetry only plays with such ideas. On the contrary, it is a literary exercise that allows him (and the reader) to contemplate other important human themes regarding, for instance, children’s education, literary ideas that tend to provoke, but also reveal the exact nuances of human behaviour, qualities that are intrinsically part of us and which Molano hopes to normalize through poetry.

“For Three Weeks” proposes a confessional narrator who progressively becomes the center of the action and is not just a voyeur observing other characters’ sexual interactions. The poem shows an evolution in the behaviour and personality of the narrator. The narrator here is someone who has to drink to work up the courage to have sex with a male prostitute. The narrator steals

80 money from his father to pay for sex, showing his desperation, anxiety, discomfort, and naivety in his attempt to become a daring, sexually active man as he struggles to achieve personal independence and maturity. On the one hand, he plans to come out of his comfort zone and pay a male prostitute to have sex with him. On the other, he still needs his father’s financial support to make his sexual fantasy come true. One way or another, the narrator has to face his fears, comes through with his plan to have sex, and ponders on the consequences of paying for sex, being deceived and robbed, and finally, finding true love.

“For Three Weeks” has four stanzas. The first begins: “I've only had a few drinks to give me courage, and I’ve / gone to the marketplace of boys to / buy you: / You were the most beautiful.”64 As the narrator drinks to build up his courage to pay for sex, Molano presents him as a more overt and human individual, showing his insecurities and desires without taboos. From the outset, the narrator directly addresses the narratee by offering a friendly and relatable exposition of an intimate situation to build the scene. The first stanza could be interpreted in two ways. First, when he says that he has gone to the marketplace to buy you, this could indicate that the narrator has previously seen a boy he likes, probably several times before, but not until now has he had the courage to pay for his services. However, a second interpretation, in light of the cinematic language of flipping focus or changing the camera angles, would be that Molano uses the word you to refer to the reader who is put in the position of the prostitute as to be seduced, won over, and invited to have an intimate moment with the author. This first stanza offers a framework based on anticipation, excitement, and seduction, and also shows that the sexual encounter has been planned in advance; hence, there is a clear premeditated desire to be recognized and loved by the reader.

64 Sólo he bebido unos tragos para darme valor, y he ido al mercado de muchachos para comprarte: eras el más bello. 81

Additionally, the level of intimacy and revelation of these first lines takes the reader straight to the “marketplace of boys,” a place that allows the narrator to purchase his otherwise illegal sexual dealings. The setting is an urban context—the city of Bogotá—an enormous metropolis that allows places such as this marketplace to thrive and exist. Why does Molano portray such places and actions? One answer has to do with the level of segregation, ostracism, and marginalization that the LGBT community, including the Colombian LGBT community, has endured for years. As noted by Álvaro Urrea-Ramírez , although “there have been advances [in

Colombia] in the area of LGBT rights and a much more tolerant public discourse has been adopted, there are still entrenched prejudices and segregation that seek to normalize and classify homosexuality in a heteronormative scheme.” Urrea-Ramírez goes on to quote Oscar Collazos, who argues that “tolerance, in this sense, is not recognition or legitimation but a simple liberal accommodation to a practice that is still considered abnormal” (54).65

The poem continues:

I could have told you how beautiful it / was to think / of you all these days, but I have not

/ done it / - You seemed so hurried to love me -, / and I didn’t / know what to say while I

was naked. / I could have even kissed you before / I asked you where you had been all /

this time, / that I’ve walked alone. / Now, I don’t understand why you smile that way. /

And you wear my watch. And you get that pocketknife. / (I don’t think it’s worth telling

you that / you didn’t look so cynical in the dreams I had last night.)66

65 “Como se destacó anteriormente, aquí también se hace claro que si bien han habido avances en materia de derechos y se ha adoptado un discurso público mucho más tolerante, aún persisten prejuicios fuertemente arraigados que buscan la normalización y el encasillamiento de la homosexualidad en un esquema heteronormado: ‘La tolerancia, en este sentido, no es reconocimiento ni legitimación sino un simple acomodamiento liberal a una práctica que todavía es tenida por anormal’ (Collazos, 1997, p. 3-A).” 66 Hubiera podido contarte lo hermoso que fue pensar en ti todos estos días, pero no me ha salido hacerlo -parecías tan apresurado por amarme-, y no he sabido de qué puede hablarse mientras se desnuda 82

Here, Molano raises the problem of loneliness and points to ways in which one can buy companionship. The narrator wants to feel, touch, kiss and enjoy sex with another man; but he is not sincerely reciprocated. The same can also be said about Molano wanting to get the attention and devotion of the reader that, from his point of view, has taken from him and not given much back. The narrator’s only option is to achieve sexual pleasure clandestinely, even though the male prostitute does not love him back and only deceives, tricks, and steals. The rent boy has developed a scheme whose intention is to deceive and outwit his clients. He is the villain of the story, and the narrator is the damsel-in-distress waiting for his hero to appear and rescue him.

Molano narrates events in relation to secrecy and underground illegal sex activities that reflect on the seclusion in which these transactions must occur. This is a problem that has plagued the LGBT community for many years: that homosexuality and any sexual activity related to gay sex was branded as a “mental disorder” or deviance, leading to the marginalization and stigmatization of such sexual encounters.67 In this poem, the narrator’s desire and need to steal money, and pay for gay sex, reflect the circumstances that force him to work in secrecy and illegality, compelling him to satisfy his cravings clandestinely. It also reveals another complex side of the city of Bogota, an urban space that allows such spaces to operate, at least in the shadows or in the periphery and never accepted by the majority of the society. The clandestinity of the sex

uno. Hubiera podido, incluso, darte un beso antes de preguntarte dónde te habías metido todo este tiempo en que anduve solo. Ahora, no entiendo por qué sonríes de esa manera. Y te pones mi reloj. Y sacas esa navaja. (Creo que no vale la pena decirte que no lucías tan cínico en los sueños que tuve anoche). 67 See Jack Drescher and Roland Hellman’s research on mental health issues affecting LGBT people, “he Handbook of LGBT Issues in Community Mental Health. Drescher and Hellman outline the public health response to sexual minorities and offer a historical background on these issues. For instance, they point out that, “Mentally ill lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals face a dual stigma in society: they are frequently discriminated against by virtue of their health issues, as well as their sexual orientation and gender identity” (12). 83 in the poems points to how gay men have been treated, sometimes as mentally sick, and discriminated against for their sexual orientation and sexual activities. They are forced to search for sex in illegal or peripheral spaces that offer anonymity. Molano’s revelations have their own social implications where some offer their bodies for money, and others look for people and places to satisfy their sexual desire.

“For Three Weeks” connects to a poem mentioned in “A Kiss by Dick,” written by Jacques

Prévert, a poem that Leonardo gives Felipe as he is recovering from his father’s punishment for their kiss. Prévert’s poem is entitled “Pour toi, mon amour” (“For You, my Love”):

I went to the market, where they sell birds / and I bought some birds / for you, my love / I

went to the market, where they sell flowers / and I bought some flowers / for you, my love

/ I went to the market, where they sell chains / and I bought some chains / heavy chains /

for you, my love / And then I went to the slave market /, and I looked for you /, but I did

not find you there / my love.69

There are some differences between Prévert’s and Molano’s poems. Though they both relate to the same place—the market—the development of the action and the focus of the narration are different. Prévert’s poem focuses on the idea that an individual can be in love and still be in chains, highlighting that love can be restrictive and all-consuming. Molano’s poem suggests that love can be deceitful, cunning, and hurt you in unexpecting ways. For Molano, the idea of being in love, buying love and fantasizing about love, is sometimes much better than the reality that people may take advantage of you and use you to get what they want and ruin the fantasy in the process.

69 “Hoy he ido al Mercado de pájaros / y he comprado pájaros /para ti, amor mío. / Hoy he ido al mercado de flores / y he comprado flores, hermosas flores, / para ti, amor mío. / Hoy he ido al mercado de hierros / y compré cadenas, pesadas cadenas, /para ti amor mío. / Y luego he ido al mercado de esclavos / para comprarte. / Pero no te encontré / amor mío” (Un beso de Dick 138). 84

We move now to “Sweet D/S,” a poem that explores homoerotic fantasies concerning pain and pleasure and dominance and submission, erotic practices related to BDSM, consensual fantasies that are a lifestyle for many people. As the title suggests, there is pleasure contained in the sweetness of D/S, two letters of an acronym that, according to BDSM practices, combines the initial letters of the words Bondage, Discipline, Domination, Submission, Sadism, and Masochism.

According to Elena Faccio, Claudia Casini, and Sabrina Cipolletta in “Forbidden Games: The

Construction of Sexuality and Sexual Pleasure by BDSM ‘Players,’” the acronym BDSM has been adopted in literature to mean a variety of sexual practices and preferences, such as Bondage and

Discipline (BD), to indicate to the sexual-practice of being tied up, physically restricted from movement. Dominance and Submission (DS) means a set of rules and practices in affiliation to the giving and obtaining control over the other. Lastly, there is the category of Sadism and Masochism

(SM), where sexual satisfaction is achieved by inflicting or receiving degradation, pain, and humiliation with the partner’s consent. Given the broad spectrum of BDSM practices, interest in it can range from a one-time experience to a lifestyle (752). BDSM brings about six erotic practices that work separately or in conjunction with each other and speak of sexual pleasures and alternative sexualities.

“Sweet D/S” refers to the pleasures found in and described by an unnamed character, a sexual interaction charged with Dominance and Submission:

The one who is here / naked / offering his butt next to the bed / fearing / the one who has

confessed / and does not feel / guilt / of betrayal / thus he awaits / and desires / his

punishment. / The one who is still / dressed / suspended by the thread of love / behind his

friend / the one who wields / and now releases / from his hand the belt / and comes to

relieve with kisses / the flagella that he has thought. / Those who in the hours of hatred. /

Those who love each other.70

These two characters are unnamed, perhaps to give them a sort of anonymity, but they take on specific roles. One is a submissive male who has assumed a passive role. Found out in his betrayal, he nervously awaits punishment from his friend. The other character takes on the dominant role and is in a position of power because he is dressed and behind his friend’s naked body. The poem thus codifies the language of BDSM into the role play of these two guys and their sexual activity.

This portrait of a sexual power play (and role play) is a situation in which one is the master or Dominant, and the other is the slave, or Submissive. The poem portrays this power exchange as an enjoyable mutual exchange and not as a relinquishing of power, and so it goes against the traditional credence (discussed by Edelman) that “to be penetrated is to abdicate power” (98).71

For instance, the phrase “offering his butt next to the bed” specifies a sexual position within their role-playing exchange, which marks positions of dominance and submission that have been accepted by both. The verse “he awaits / and desires / his punishment” also indicates the subordinate position of one character towards the other, after he is found to be guilty of betrayal.

However, both characters are to receive pleasure and enjoyment from dominating and being dominated. Molano makes sure, with his poetic visual devices and use of cinematic sexual language in sentences like “suspended by the thread of love,” to refer to both the dominant position

70 “El que está aquí / desnudo / ofreciendo su trasero junto al lecho / temeroso / el que ha confesado / y no siente / culpa / una traición / así pues espera / y desea / castigo. / El que está aún / vestido / de pie sobre el vilo del amor/ tras de su amigo / el que empuña / y ahora suelta / de su mano la correa / y viene a aliviar con besos / los flagelos que ha pensado. / Los que en las horas del odio. / Los que se aman.” 71 Edelman’s Homographesis summarizes Leo Bersani’s description of the Athenian belief in “a legal and moral incompatibility between sexual passivity and civic authority” in relation to penetration and male power, and then goes on to quote David Halperin’s argument that the “classical Athens […] promoted a new collective image of the citizen body as masculine and assertive, as master of its pleasures, and as perpetually on the superordinate side of a series of hierarchical and roughly congruent distinctions in status: master vs. slave, free vs. unfree, dominant vs. submissive, active vs. passive, customer vs. prostitute, citizen vs. non-citizen, man vs. woman” (qtd. 98). 86 of the clothed man imparting the action and the subordinate character who waits for punishment from his lover. Both characters are suspended by the love for each other, and the punishment is never completed; hence, the sensuality of their kisses, touch, and love are more important than (or equally important as) the D/S role-playing fantasy.

“Sweet D/S” breaks with the typical linguistic conventions of BDSM where some participants capitalize the words D/s (and names) to refer to the dominant’s roles, and do not capitalize those that refer to the submissive member’s letter. Capitalizing both letters in the title of his poem, Molano leaves both characters at the same level of importance and power play. Molano also uses pronouns such as “the one” instead of, for instance, “This slave” or “Mr. Diego’s boy.”

Molano’s use of romantic language thus plays against conventional uses of BDSM rules. He uses the set phrases “the threat of love” and “now releases from his hand the belt and comes to relieve with kisses,” and “hatred and love,” to indicate a romantic interaction which is not necessarily a feature of D/s’s participants but more of a sensual movie.

Molano uses cinematic language that goes well with the fantasy role-playing of BDSM where the dominant and the subordinate interact in power play and sexual activities: words like

“punishment,” “suspended,” “behind,” “wields,” “belts,” and “flagella.” “Sweet D/S” plays with typical elements of BDSM practices, a power control (the feeling of ownership and the feeling of being owned72) and sexual behaviours and fetishes. Yet, it also inverts some of the more typical

BDSM conventions such as personal pronouns, capitalization of roles, and romantic love.

Additionally, interactions like those seen in movies reveal a sense of normality where sexuality is just a game and serve to demonstrate the applicability and importance of such sexual practices.

Notably, BDSM practices such as Submission and Dominance relate to a sort of ownership of one

72 Faccio et al., 755-756. 87 partner by another, and are concerned with associations of the body and the mind when having sexual encounters and pleasure with others.

3.3 Poetry and Death

Molano sees literature as a contemplative tool to reflect on feelings and anxieties in relation to death. He addresses the permanence of death, the decay of the flesh (death corrupts the body and its beauty), and the loss of his partner and the acceptance of his own premature death. Literature helps Molano traverse feelings towards death, such as sadness, loneliness, relief, and mourning.

And it helps him explore emotions about life such as the joy of living, the time he has left, and the many things he will never do. Literature here expresses the fragility of the body with the permanence of death and the persistence of desire when sick with a deadly disease such as AIDS.

With his writing, Molano becomes synonymous with the survivor. “All My Things in Your

Pockets” shows his love for life as he pushes back against death by writing as much as he can with the time he has left because he knows he will soon die from AIDS. Molano becomes the fighter against solitude, oppression, poverty, and death itself. Poetry becomes a form of expression—a safety line—when there is no hope left in humanity or in God. Literature becomes a lifeline for the lovers, Molano and Diego, who are attacked by AIDS and live in a discriminatory society where homophobia, poverty, and prejudice are constants. Molano offers literature, and more precisely poetry, as a means of empowerment for the gay man and his homoeroticism, to cope with his insecurities and problems, and also to remind himself that life must be lived and enjoyed. “All My

Things in Your Pockets” has a simple and unpretentious narrative that encloses the reader in a love story and makes him or her forget preconceived notions of homosexuality and literature.

Molano was a fighter and a survivor, not only because he found defiance and empowerment in literature, but also because he found in writing a way to immortalize his work and his love—

88 with his two novels and book of poetry—and his desire to be remarkable without being pretentious while battling all kinds of injustices. In “All My Things in Your Pockets,” he left evidence of how he felt about death in relation not only to his death but also to the passing of Diego. The poem

“Cuando leímos LA MUERTE DE IVÁN ILICH, Diego decía” (“When we read THE DEATH

OF IVÁN ILICH, Diego said”) is an example of Molano’s dealings with death: “Walking a whole lifetime / dodging the question / Death…? / At this supreme moment / when we finally have / to the point / and almost in front of our eyes / the answer / without having in any way / to listen to it or feel it / What is it / in the end?”73 This poem points out how people are always avoiding the question of death. Yet talking about death is facing the inescapable reality that life is just a short fantasy and that, at some point or another, people must die.

The poem’s title refers to Leo Tolstoy’s masterpiece The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886), a novel which, as Gerald Lang notes, tells the story of a man who, facing imminent death, finds atonement from a sinful and flowed existence (325). Ivan Ilych is a Russian public judge in his mid-forties working at the Ministry of Justice in the city of Saint Petersburg. He lives in a bourgeois middle-class home and neighbourhood, is happy working for the state, maintaining his social status and detached from family affairs, and is unprepared for his death (326). Much of the plot of the novel is about the physical, psychological and emotional struggles that Ivan has to suffer from an accident he suffers, as he faces the fear of knowing he will soon die (226-327). This is why Molano refers to Tolstoy’s work in his poem, because now that he has walked a very intense but short life, he too has had the time to ponder the many emotions on the inescapability from death. In Molano’s final days he was so ill that he was mostly in the hospital. He knew he was

73 “Andar toda una vida / esquivando la pregunta / ¿La muerte...? / Y este momento supremo / en que por fin tenemos / a punto / y casi frente a los ojos / la respuesta / sin ya tener manera alguna / de escucharla o de sentirla / ¿qué cosa es / al fin y al cabo?” 89 going to die, but not exactly when. Therefore, death becomes Molano’s central theme, and by writing about it, he claims power and ownership over it.

Molano asks, “What is it in the end?” In other words, what is death? Philosopher Merold

Westphal asserts that Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich is a novel that makes of death a sort of adversary, the malevolent antagonistic other, the enemy, and in turn drives Ivan to distract himself from what matters most: his wife, his family, living in the present and for himself. Westphal argues that, as Ivan realizes that he is going to die, negative feelings of fear and horror take over him and because of “it,” “the black hole” symbolized by death (Westphal 90). Equally, Temira Pachmuss, in her essay “The Theme of Love and Death in Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” maintains that, in the novel, Tolstoy describes a horrific encounter with death and agony is ever present. Pachmuss points out that perhaps what is saddest about Ivan Ilyich is that he lived a false life, with the need for material things and lying to others. As such, equally crucial for Tolstoy to depict Ilyich’s death, is to narrate his feelings of loneliness and isolation from others, from himself, and nature (76-77).

Molano wants us to face the reality that death is inevitable, that every one of us will die at some point. He wants us to live and love to the fullest without fearing death, so worrying or thinking about death is pointless. Molano suggests that what matters is to live well, to live an honest life with others and for yourself and be in control of your body, your sexuality, and your life. What has meaning in Molano’s life? I would say the love for Diego, even after death, living an honest and creative life, expressing his passion and sexuality through his writing, and falling in love again.

The repercussions of having HIV, such as sickness and melancholia concerning death, is embodied in the poem “V.I.H.” Here, a confessional Molano reveals very intimate details, from the point of view of the person with HIV, and presents, in his body, signs of deterioration, even as he still has so much to live for and experience. “V.I.H.” is divided into four stanzas. The first

90 portrays a young Molano who wonders about the time he has left: “I’m young and I’m still here, / let’s say, / in this surreal time / that for my elders has fled / so fast.”74 The poem’s first line contrasts

Molano’s youth with the fact that he to live and die at a young age. Molano died at the age of 37, wanting to finish his book of poems and dreaming of working on other literary projects. Molano sees that time is escaping him; it is a surreal time that cannot be understood because modern medicine cannot offer him a cure fast enough to live longer. Molano realizes that his elders have lived their lives, perhaps carelessly and without leaving a mark. Chloe Rutter-Jensen argues that

Molano’s writings are part of a cultural struggle against the violence exerted on sexualities.

Molano “uses literary strategies to denaturalize official discourses about homosexuality and, in turn, intervene in the cultural representations of HIV/AIDS” (473-474). However, Molano also presents another image of death, a personal one, where people, pressed by society and its rules, accept those norms which aim at controlling people’s bodies and sexualities.

The second stanza of “V.I.H.” tells us more about its narrator’s cultural and personal struggle: “In me desire / rears at every moment / of each night and each day, / and it well could be restarted / without giving, on the other hand, a lot. / So, I don’t have to ask for strength / and courage: I don’t have them / simply, / and I continue—without even intending to propose it to myself / putting things in my dream’s duffel bag.”75 Here, the narrator is sick and infected with

HIV, facing the final stage of living with AIDS, yet he feels sexual desire and the energy to be sexually active. Molano’s desire is constant and shows him as an active and sexual human being.

This desire goes against the national consensus and discourses that a person infected with AIDS should not be sexually active or desire other people. However, “V.I.H.” demonstrates that a person

74 “Soy joven y estoy aún, / digamos, / en ese tiempo inverosímil / que para mis mayores ha huido / tan de prisa.” 75 “En mí el deseo/ se encabrita a cada instante / de cada noche y de cada día, / y bien podría ser recomenzado / sin dar, por otra parte, mucho. / Así, no tengo por qué pedir la fuerza / y el coraje: yo no los tengo simplemente / y sigo - sin proponérmelo siquiera / echando cosas en el talego de mis sueños.” 91 living with HIV can still be sexually active and awaken. Molano humanizes the sick body and reformulates what is to live with HIV and AIDS as a person who desires, loves, and dreams.

The third stanza of “V.I.H.” portrays a narrator who, against all odds, still feels hopeful about the future, even though his present seems darker: “I still have—I cannot explain how / a pinch of hope / enough / to believe that things will be better / -not my things: things plainly / and

I try, / but I cannot help it sometimes, / not to be cruel.”76 At first glance, Molano seems to be hopeful of humanity, even if guided by small glimpses of kindness and instinct that the future will be better for others. However, for other HIV patients, other LGBT people, other children of limited financial resources, and other dreamers like him, the situation is dark and gloomy, as depicted by

Molano’s desolate language. The cruelty that Molano refers to here, in relation to the disease, resonates with a moment from “View From a Sidewalk” where Fernando reacts to the discrimination felt by him when taking care of Adrián at the hand of a hospital student:

“Look,” I say, trying be measured, “you know perfectly well who I am. I’m his friend; I’m

his lover, I’m his boyfriend, I’m his partner: whatever you want to call it. So, I don’t know

why you have to ask me that. And what I’m doing here seems obvious to me. He is seriously

ill; he is almost dying. It is natural that I want to accompany him, right? Also, I have written

authorization to stay here at night. Now, if that bothers you, if it bothers you to see me or

attend to him, then do not come to this room. Anyway, I don’t think you can help much: if

the neurologist can’t do anything, much less can you, a simple student.” (198)77

76 “Aún conservo -no sé explicar cómo / una pizca de esperanza / suficiente / para creer que serán mejores las / cosas / -no las mías: las cosas llanamente / e intento, / aunque no puedo evitarlo a veces, / no ser cruel.” 77 “—Mire—le digo intentando mesurarme—: usted sabe perfectamente quien soy yo. Soy su amigo, soy su amante, soy su novio, soy su compañero: como quiera llamarlo. Así que no sé porque me lo pregunta. Y que hago aquí, me parece obvio. Él está grave, está casi muriendo, es natural que quiera acompañarlo, ¿no? Además, tengo una autorización escrita para permanecer aquí en las noches. Ahora, si le molesta, si le incomoda verme o atenderlo a él, pues no venga a este cuarto. De todos modos, no creo que pueda ayudar mucho: si no puede hacer nada el neurólogo, mucho menos usted que es un simple estudiante” (Vista desde una acera, 198). 92

For Molano, the many instances where he and his lover were the focus of discriminatory comments and insults, not only because they were gay and in love, but also because of their HIV infection, provoke an abrupt but honest reaction towards a world that is unjust and cruel.

The poem’s following stanzas represent the author’s point of view on his death. Here,

Molano recalls the long relationship he has had with death. He feels her presence “stuck to his heels,” like an annoying piece of gum that does not come off, and as a specter that never goes away. With vivid imagery, metaphors, and dramatic language, Molano emphasizes how close he is to falling at death’s claws: “But towards me, death is hastening. / In truth, I’ve had it for years / stuck to my heels, / blowing her mist on my cheeks. / Hands up against the wall, / squeezing my thighs and my eyes, / she has me; /, and I wait, alone, for it to finally hit me with / her sad blow.”78

The poem uses a variety of verbs that express motion: “hastening,” “blowing,” and “to hit.” These actions represent the unequivocal moving presence of death towards him, who sees himself as a passive subject who can only wait, motionless. To describe his attempt to delay this action, Molano uses words such as “stuck,” “hands up,” “squeezing,” to demonstrate that “I wait” (he is waiting) for death’s final visit. The poem also constructs some dreadful imagery in sentences like “blowing her mist on my cheeks,” phrases that conjure up an image of death as a cold presence whose breath kisses the author’s warm cheeks, and slowly takes the life out of him; she welcomes him into her arms. Molano’s frustration and sense of impotence to repeal the power that death has over him are palpable: “she has me.” The image of the narrator against the wall reminds me of a police body search performed on a suspicious civilian. Molano tries to stop it by clutching off his body from

78 “Pero hacia mí la muerte se apresura. / En verdad, hace años la tengo / pegada a mis talones, / soplándome su / vaho en los carrillos. / Manos arriba contra la pared, / apretados los muslos y los ojos, / ella me tiene; / y aguardo, solo, a que por fin me aseste / su triste golpe.” 93 the brutal violation of death, but he realizes that death is more powerful and surrenders to her:

Molano accepts death’s victory and power over him.

The final stanza of “V.I.H.” presents a narrator who questions death’s intentions with direct dialogue. He does not trust her, but, at the same time, the narrator imagines her seduction, almost a sexual interaction between him and death. Once more, he shows his desire and lust for life. He still feels, gets excited, loves, and desires the pleasure of the body: “What is then death waiting for? / What does that lady want to do with me? / just grazing my body / with her tender veils / without hugging me? / while at my back boils and excites me / life / and love, / and desire: for the boys, / the flesh / the aroma of their armpits...”79 The representation and expectation of death have some sexualized nuances. For instance, death takes the shape of a third lover, that teases the narrator’s body with her “tender veils” but does not fully embrace him. It is as if Molano wants death to participate in this sexual triad comprised of himself, the boys, and death herself, forming and colliding three different worlds into one. The boys represent the world of the living, full of life and desires, and youth. The second world, represented by the author himself who symbolizes the dying body, and who still feels but cannot dream with the certainty of living longer. And thirdly, a world where death is a seductive queen who moves freely between the living and the dead; she seduces, tantalizes and corrupts. By positioning death as a sexual partner, Molano does not fear death anymore and gives in to the sensual and erotic characteristics that death offers him, similar to those sexual qualities of excitement that boy’s body awards him. By materializing and sexualizing death, Molano takes death as another partner, as another flirtation that he can enjoy, perhaps in the company of his beloved Diego, in the afterlife.

79 “¿Qué espera, pues, la muerte? / ¿Qué pretende conmigo esa señora / sólo rozando mi cuerpo / sus tiernos velos / sin abrazarme?, / mientras a mi espalda bulle y me excita / la vida / y el amor, /y el deseo: los muchachos, / el fresco aroma en sus axilas...” 94

In conclusion, I have analyzed five of Molano’s poems, “Desde mi Ventana,” “Hace tres semanas no como nada en mis recreos, y le he robado un dinero a mi padre,” “Sweet D/S,”

“Cuando leímos LA MUERTE DE IVÁN ILICH, Diego decía,” and “V.I.H.” I have shown that

Molano’s poetry has a cinematic language, which helps him construct a vivid lyric image of the eroticism involved in the narrative language of love, seduction, and death. These poems show poetry as a personal instrument of testimony and invention where Molano can escape all sort of traumas and difficulties and which offers him an intimate account of the pleasures and hardships of life. Poetry provides Molano with a channel to express his sexual fantasies and sexuality in relation to the deceased, pleasure, pain, and desire while also questioning society’s taboos and proscriptions associated with them. “All My Things in Your Pockets” has multiple narrators and imagines different positionalities, not only autobiographical and confessional but also imaginatively and creatively. Poetry allows the author to be an eyewitness, a voyeur, an observer, and an actor to his present, someone who sometimes participates in the action and other times stays absent. Another poetic element that distinguish Molano and his poetry is the narrative language used in telling a private story or account from the poet’s own point of view. Finally, he employs poetry and literature as an instrument of escapism and testimony that allows him to confess all sorts of experiences and hardships in life that he put into poetry (and prose) as quickly and as much as he could with the limited amount of time he had left to live.

Conclusion

Fernando Molano Vargas is atypical within the Colombian literary context as a result of his embrace of homoeroticism and the hardships that surrounded his life. Further, Molano’s work is limited and succinct. It is limited in that it is challenging to find (or buy), because the publishing companies frequently stopped reprinting his novels. It is succinct because Molano wrote most of his texts under pressure, writing as much as he could while dying from AIDS and in the fear that he would not be able to complete it. Some sections of Molano’s texts may feel short or incomplete, but the mastery of his writing shines through thanks to his dexterity over language and storytelling.

It is essential to read all of Molano’s works as a trilogy since they complement and converse with each other to create a complete narration of the author’s literary cosmology. Molano’s best-known work is Un beso de Dick (1992), which became an underground cult success. Later, Molano published his book of poems, Todas mis cosas en tus bolsillos (1998) and, finally, Vista desde una acera (2012), a text that was rescued by some of Molano’s friends and given to Colcultura (the

Colombian Institute of Culture) to be published. As Abad Faciolince observes (and as I have already quoted him saying, above), “Molano’s three works make up a kind of complementary trilogy that narrates a world,” and each book is essential to fully understand Molano’s intention.

For instance, Abad Faciolince continues, “the book of poems, in particular, works as a hinge between the first novel [“A Kiss by Dick”] and the posthumous novel [“View From a Sidewalk”], completing and explaining many of the meanings of the two books of prose” (“Postfacio” 254).

Molano’s literary production is important, not only within Colombian letters but also within a Latin American context, especially when considering his desire to leave a legacy, tell his personal story, and produce literature despite the social, health and family pressures he faced.

Molano died young, and given his limited literary production, this has helped make the author and

96 his contribution to Colombian literature somewhat well-known. Nevertheless, all Molano’s texts are seen, within the national contexts, as cult literary creations. Molano was sensitive, talented, perseverant, intelligent and a fighter who faced multiple adversities. He was passionate for the under-represented individual and had a deep appreciation and love for knowledge, literature, cinema, poetry, painting, among many other art forms. The love that Molano had for the Luis

Ángel Arango library in Bogota, which can be considered not only his reading and literary sanctuary for learning, became a haven from the chaos and instability of his life. In Vita desde una acera Molano comments about the library. “Now I can't say anything about that place: I would need a beautiful ode, and I wouldn't know how to write it” (92).80

The library symbolizes a familiar space from where the author developed his love for literature, art, and cinema. It is because of the library as a cradle of knowledge that Molano begins to gestate writing ideas like the mixture of literature and cinema. As Molano says of this relationship: “The truth is that if they hadn't kicked me out of school that afternoon, I would have taken off anyway to go there and devour that book. I had searched for it because of some strange comment that I don't remember in an encyclopedia of literature, or something similar, in the Luis

Ángel library. It was the story of a writer from Munich, already old, who had gone on vacation in a kind of spa in Venice” (159).81 The book to which Molano is alluding here is Death in Venice

(1912), by the German author Thomas Mann, which is also a movie (Morte a Venezia, 1971), which Molano sees and subsequently falls in love with Swedish actor, Björn Johan Andrésen. One can see the correlation in the way Molano relates literature, cinema, and homoerotic attraction.

80 “Ahora no puedo decir nada de ese lugar: necesitaría una oda hermosa, y no sabría como escribirla” (92). 81 “La verdad es que, si no me hubieran echado esa tarde del colegio, me hubiera volado de todos modos para venir allí a devorarme ese libro. Lo había buscado por no recuerdo que comentario extraño que había leído en una enciclopedia de literatura, o algo parecido, en la Luis Ángel. Era la historia de un escritor de Munich [sic], ya viejo, que había ido a pasar vacaciones en una especie de balneario de Venecia” (159).

The city of Bogotá, the Luis Ángel Arango library and his eternal love for Diego allowed Molano to forge his literary vocation, find gay romance, and compose his material.

Unlike contemporary writers who were also homosexual and died of HIV/AIDS-related complications, such as Jaime Gil de Biedma y Alba, Manuel Ramos Otero or Severo Sarduy,

Molano’s material conditions prevented him from seeking refuge in more tolerant cultural centers like Europe or the United States. For Molano who was triply marginalized (poor, homosexual, and ill with HIV), literature was a matter of survival. Literature therefore becomes a matter of life and death. The fact that Molano wrote under the pressure of living with HIV, with death as his companion, is admirable knowing the author’s command of the subject matter in each text. As a result, Molano develops a close relationship with writing and death. He may abandon hope for mankind, but he never lost his optimism for creative ingenuity, writing, and literature. Writing is

Molano’s personal salvation from the continuous attacks that poverty, sickness, and homophobia brought to his life. Homoeroticism, passion, desire and love appear among his dominant subjects.

One way or another, Molano’s writings reformulate discourses and perceptions about homosexuals to show them as loving, complex and creative people. Such an approach resides mostly in the particularity of its narrative, in which the homosexual subject is capable of generating empathy and of being constructed as a multifaceted, sincere, and above all, passionate individual. Self- discovery, sexual expression, and self-determination are also some of Molano’s guiding principles, and they can be seen in the characters he constructed. One of Molano’s most significant literary achievements is his ability to bring homoeroticism, sexuality, and innocence together with themes of pain and pleasure, and of life and death.

Stereotypical views of homosexuals deny them a wide range of emotions, behaviors, and practices, reducing them instead to a set of characteristics such as promiscuity, drug addiction,

98 even criminality, and assimilating them with imaginaries such as the pervert, the psychopath and the degenerate. One of the consequences of such representation (which is naturalized through film, television, literature, newspapers, and magazines) is that it is assumed that the homosexual does not have the capacity to love, to empathize, and that his interactions are reduced to sporadic contacts with other men that never end in a deeper relationship. Molano shatters these misrepresentations and stereotypes, offering a new light on the lives of gay men who face severe social, economic, and political pitfalls as a minority. Molano is one of the few Colombian writers to explore homoerotic and homosexual issues, contrasting them with the complexity of growing up in a nation that is intrinsically violent and exclusionary of any form of difference or otherness.

As Urrea-Ramírez comments, “One cannot condemn Molano’s use of sex” because, within his cosmology, it can be seen as “a liberating force that serves to intervene in social rules, discourses and pre-established institutions that try to naturalize the politics that seeks to control the body and the desire and pleasure of these dissident subjects” that homosexuals are considered to be. Sexuality in Molano’s texts “disturbs these parameters and creates new logics,” new ways of seeing the world. Molano’s work shows a political commitment based on declaring and exploring love ideals in relation to sex, eroticism, and passion in order to oppose heteronormative and sexist national discourses. Urrea-Ramírez continues that “this implies not only reformulating existing narratives but also creating new spaces that allow for new forms of affectivity in which marginal sexualities can exist and develop on their own terms. Literature is not confined to the pages of books but acts on those who read it and in the context in which it is produced: it has the capacity to save lives, to give meaning, and to transform reality” (136).

With the first chapter of this thesis, I showed that Molano sees literature in “A Kiss by

Dick” as a way to rediscover the homosexual experience through writing about the courtship of

99 two young gay men and how they negotiate, express and discover their sexual desire in traditional macho and heteronormative environments. It also grants Molano the opportunity to revise his own openness and issues with homosexuality and puts a mirror up to society’s own problems with people who think and act differently from the norm. Molano combines personal experience based on autobiographical details with literary fiction and explores how homosexual discrimination has affected him and others. “A Kiss by Dick” is a love story that works on the recognition of one’s own homosexuality and sexual desire; homoeroticism is a constant in its narrative. Molano gives his protagonist, Felipe, inquisitive and innocent characteristics that allow him (and his boyfriend) to confront difficult situations framed on family violence, abuse, and rejection. “A Kiss by Dick” is Molano’s first attempt—and one of the few in the whole of Colombian literature—to question society’s hypocrisy and coercion towards individual freedoms and same-sex relationships. The optimism of Molano’s first novel shows that there is nothing reprehensible in the story of two men who love each other, either when it was written or now.

The second chapter demonstrated that, in “View From a Sidewalk,” themes of poverty, family relations, innocence, and rape are all central under the main subject of homosexuality through the stories of characters close to the immediate family situation of the author himself.

Writing allows Molano the freedom to reflect on issues of the triple marginalization he and his lover faces. Once more, the subject of being in love, searching for love, and looking for intimacy, recognition, and affection are all elements that are missing or incomplete in Molano’s life. There is a clear connection between literature and homosexuality in Molano’s “View From a Sidewalk,” which points to the fact that most of this text indicates the weight that homosexuality had on him, in his sentimental, emotional and sexual life, so relevant in a time when many Colombians were proud homophobes. The novel is heavily autobiographical, where the life of the author is perhaps

100 the main storyline that is divided in two: the story of a queer child, his innocence and its loss, and an adult in love, taking care of his lover and possibly facing death himself. The encounter of the gay character and poverty and the social discrimination for being poor are prevalent issues in

“View From a Sidewalk,” told not only through protagonist’s growing up without resources of but also through the narration of the difficulties of a provincial homosexual man like Adrián,

Fernando’s partner. The protagonists search for acceptance, to achieve a successful life, and to make it out of poverty; they have to fight against all the odds in order to achieve these dreams.

This is a fight against tradition, social hierarchies, and the education system. Molano uses literature to depict a path towards being authentic with oneself and with the person one loves. It is in literature that Molano finds a resource to control his own narrative to be remembered after death, to create his own universe and his own life.

The third chapter of this thesis analyzed Molano’s poetry in “All My Things in Your

Pockets,” where the author explores sexual desire, homoeroticism, passion, love, and death. Here, through very personal and intimate examples, the author reflects on the situations he lived and transforms these experiences into poetry. “All My Things in Your Pockets” is a literary exercise that contains a multiplicity of time periods and ages in its protagonists (child, adolescent, and adult) and explores the feelings, desires and consequences of the gay experience. The poetic language of “All My Things in Your Pockets” is experimental and cinematic, where the role of the poet is similar to that of a filmmaker or a painter, to construct an image of the homosexual as someone seductive and passionate, like any other human being. A central theme of “All My Things in Your Pockets” is its sexualized narrative and poetic nature where the subject matter is curiosity itself that works flawlessly within Molano’s literary cosmology.

101

The goal of this thesis was to investigate the role of literature in Molano’s life, and how he constructs the homoerotic subject through literary tools and language. Of the many uses of literature in Molano’s artistic universe, some of the most profound are: the agency to formulate his own narrative, to control the way he is remembered after death; writing as a post-traumatic mnemonic devises for sexual abuse and expression; family violence; and loss of innocence. In the end, literature, and especially the literary use of language, becomes Molano’s own cathartic device to reflect on what being homosexual represents. In reading Molano’s texts, the reader is also asked to come to terms with his or her own misconceptions and issues about homosexuality. This is one of Molano’s greatest strengths. He rediscovers how past experiences impacted him as a gay man and uses them to construct texts that offer queer people believable forms of representation that serve as a foundation to face the prejudice of a heteronormative world. Literature allows Molano to transplant his personal experiences into literary inventions for others who appreciate them as authentic examples of what it means to be homosexual.

Molano’s love for literature also deals with sex and eroticism and adopts them as elements that constitute love. The hypersexualized homosexual body that is seen in the media becomes the space suitable to make visible other forms of sexuality and to conceive of queer bodies. Molano adopts homoeroticism, homosexuality, and even homosexual love, as a site of knowledge that generates understandings beyond the parameters of the politics of the body. Therefore, Molano calls for the creation of discourse that allows queer people to defend themselves against the transmission of HIV/AIDS, a dialogue that resists the demagogic rhetoric of homophobic ideologies by constructing a truth that is based, not only on scientific facts and figures but also one that goes beyond the ambiguity of rhetoric itself by creating stories that adopt the imaginative and metaphorical usages and values of figurative language. This allows Molano to eroticize elements

102 and practices crossed by heteronormative discourses and to form a language of his own, hence expressing, with all his peculiarities, the message that love can exist between each of the protagonists of the three books. In short, the love and goodness that Fernando Molano expresses in his literature is a feeling that is embodied not only in homosexuals but wants to be universal, in the sense that it can be applied to any subject and is open to different forms of affectivity and ways of relating. Molano’s narratives open spaces for other types of bodies, feelings, pleasures and knowledge that expand and enrich what we understand by love and humanity, intervening not only in the public discourses that circulate about homosexual subjects but also in what it means for literature.

103

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