Copyright by Dorian Lee Jackson 2015
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Copyright by Dorian Lee Jackson 2015 The Dissertation Committee for Dorian Lee Jackson Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: The Other Side: An Alternate Approach to the Narconarratives of Bolivia, Colombia, and Brazil Committee: Lorraine Moore, Supervisor Gabriela Polit Dueñas, Co-Supervisor Ominiyi Afolabi Héctor Domínguez-Ruvalcaba Maria Helena Rueda The Other Side: An Alternate Approach to the Narconarratives of Bolivia, Colombia, and Brazil by Dorian Lee Jackson, BBA, MA Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2015 Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my family. Thank you Heidi, Theresa, Elise, Mom, Daddy, Bhavi, Kim, and Rick for always believing in me. I love you all. Acknowledgements I’ve always believed in the notion that going to graduate school and writing a dissertation goes beyond a singular project and is more about building a lifetime community of friends and colleagues. Completing this project has reaffirmed that assertion for me. First and foremost, I recognize the tireless work of my supervisors in this project: Dr. Gabriela Polit Dueñas and Dr. Lorraine Moore. Without their guidance, knowledge, and patience, this project would not have been possible. I offer my sincerest thanks to the both of you. I would also like to recognize my other committee members for their support and contributions. Thank you to Ominiyi Afolabi, Héctor Domínguez-Ruvalcaba, and Maria Helena Rueda. Additionally, I would like to thank my professors at The University of Georgia for their continued support throughout the years and for introducing me to the world of Brazilian literature. Thank you to Dr. Susan Quinlan and Dr. Robert Moser. Finally, I would like to offer a special thank you to Dr. Steven DuPouy for your continued friendship and inspiration. You taught me that teaching Spanish could be cool and studying Latin American literature could be even cooler. To all the friends I’ve made along the way, from Georgia to Texas, thank you. I wish I could name you all, but please know that I will always cherish the memories we’ve made together and will keep you all close to my heart. I will always have your back. I would like to acknowledge the support of my family. Heidi, thank you for standing by me through it all and never giving up on me. Theresa and Elise, thank you for reminding me why we went through all of this. Mom, thank you for teaching me the v importance of culture and knowledge. Daddy and Bhavi, thank you for always being there no matter what the situation. Kim, thank you for listening and supporting us when we needed it. Rick, thank you for being you and helping me keep things in perspective. Lastly, a very special thank you to the two women whose good sense and wisdom helped me become the person I am today; Nana and Toya. vi The Other Side: An Alternate Approach to the Narconarratives of Bolivia, Colombia, and Brazil Dorian Lee Jackson, PhD The University of Texas at Austin, 2015 Supervisors: Lorraine Moore and Gabriela Polit Dueñas Abstract: The dissertation examines novels that represent new spaces and agents of the drug trade, that re-map the trade across Latin America, and that raise questions regarding how narcotrafficking creates moral and ethical crises among people from different social classes. The corpus of literature examined includes the works of ten authors from the three countries. Juan de Recacoechea, José Wolfango Montes Vanucci, Homero Carvalho Oliva, and Tito Gutiérrez Vargas are Bolivians and write from three regions in the country. Alison Spedding is the only foreign-born author writing novels about the Bolivian drug trade included in the analysis. Darío Jaramillo Agudelo and Juan Gabriel Vásquez represent the Antioquia and Bogotá departments of Colombia. Rubem Fonseca, Patrícia Melo, and Marçal Aquino write from the cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo in Brazil. Within these novels, I examine mid-level roles of the illegal drug trade, those that have remained invisible in the mainstream representations. The levels of participation portrayed in the works range from urban, middle and upper class workers to land owners of the Bolivian countryside. My emphasis on the implications of these less spectacular roles shows that the moral decay, lack of values, and the consumer frenzy are not exclusive of the poor. The upper classes are driven by the same ambitions to access the money of the drug trade. In order to reconsider the use of narcofiction as an effective vii tool for narrating the realities of the illegal drug trade, I propose a reading of how the power and influence of narcotrafficking expose a lack of scruples in the search for financial gain on the part of what I call mid-level participants. Such a term helps me give visibility to the actions of these characters that are so needed in the business: money launderers, corrupt police officers, drug mules. This reading makes it possible to also consider the issues of culpability and impunity and the social and political divisions which are created to maintain these structures. viii Table of Contents List of Illustrations ................................................................................................. xi INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 1 Narration and Reading .................................................................................... 9 A Secondary Examination of Genre ............................................................. 11 Chapter Overview ......................................................................................... 12 Conclusions .................................................................................................. 15 CHAPTER 1: MIDDLEMEN IN NARCONARRATIVES OF BOLIVIA AND COLOMBIA ................................................................................................. 17 An Overview of the Narconovels of the Middlemen ................................... 19 Postmodern Theory and the Cultural-Social Critique of Taste in Narcotrafficking .................................................................................. 21 A Change of Profession ................................................................................ 26 Initiation and Family .................................................................................... 46 Being Businessmen ...................................................................................... 63 Conclusion .................................................................................................... 68 CHAPTER 2: REMAPPING THE BRAZILIAN NARCOSPHERE .................. 73 Studies at the Border .................................................................................... 75 The City in Contemporary Brazilian Fiction ................................................ 77 Corumbá and The Western Border ............................................................... 82 Vengeance and Exile in Corumbá ................................................................ 86 Corumbá as a Narcomicrocosm .................................................................. 101 How the West was Won: Brazil’s Western Border in Marçal Aquino’s Cabeça a prêmio ............................................................................................. 112 Interpersonal relationships in the narrative ................................................ 115 Crime and Punishment: Criminal Activity and Law Enforcement in Cabeça a prêmio ................................................................................................ 123 Conclusion .................................................................................................. 132 ix CHAPTER 3: ETHNICITY AND LOCATION IN BOLIVIAN NOVELS OF THE DRUG TRADE .......................................................................................... 136 Alison Spedding’s El viento de la cordillera: un thriller de los 80 ........... 138 “Coca no es cocaína” ......................................................................... 138 Alison Spedding, Coca, and the Bolivian Yungas ............................ 139 The Andean Trilogy .......................................................................... 147 The Ayni ............................................................................................. 150 The Outsiders ..................................................................................... 156 Gender and Ethnicity in the Yungas .................................................. 160 Homero Carvalho Oliva’s La conspiración de los viejos ........................... 166 Camba, the Nación Camba, and El Rey de la Cocaína ..................... 167 Collective Crime and Girardian Sacrifice in La conspiración de los viejos .................................................................................................. 175 MarcosVaca Diez and the resurrection of the camba narco-past ...... 183 Tito Gutiérrez Vargas’ Mariposa blanca ................................................... 186 The Chapare Province and Tito Gutiérrez Vargas ............................ 187 Crisis and Characters in Mariposa blanca ........................................ 193 Conclusion .................................................................................................. 202 CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................