La paz que nunca llega

Laburpena

After the deceptive peace experienced in Colombia with the end of drug cartel wars, the generation of people that grew up under a shadow of terror is reunited with their past. Those who were children at the time and grew up hearing the sound of bombs, ambulances, and the news, and who are now writers and first-hand witnesses, articulate their fears, their readings, and their traumas. Far beyond the commonplace of the Hispanic-American crime novel genre, which reveals the existing distrust toward institutions and authority, these authors describe distrust toward peace promises; a belief that has never existed and that, perhaps, will never become a reality. In the case of “The sound of things when falling” [El ruido de las cosas al caer] (Vásquez, 2011), the traces and legacy of drug trafficking violence are expressed in a contemporary Bogotá. Similarly, in “The house of beauty” [La casa de la Belleza] (Escobar de Nogales, 2015), Bogotá is described as a city that never really abandoned violence, and where corruption, crime and impunity have become the standard. Therefore, based on these two novels, this article intends to discuss whether the generation previously described has actually lost all hope.