You want not, to grow up with the reference of one of the last great geniuses of literature as Gabriel GarcÃa Márquez it ends up spontaneously generating school. Perhaps that is why in Colombia good and interesting storytellers come out with that naturalness that goes through several generations of lovers of good literature. From Laura Restrepo but also Pilar Quintana Or from Mario Mendoza but also Evelio Rosero, Colombian letters are always celebrating each new published by a varied plethora of great writers.
In the case of Evelio Rosero we find one of those growers of various genres at the mercy of a creativity that does not understand labels. Novelist of course but also short story writer and poet, or essayist, or playwright. A laudable variability today, when consumer literature seems to seek the opposite, to constrain and label to have everything more organized and recognizable.
For this occasion and this space, we rescue some of his best novels. Plots where the protagonists peer into those abysses of the soul that erupts unexpectedly like a volcano. Faced with imposture, customs and the daily carnival, Rosero's characters are in charge of blowing everything up to express stridencies of all kinds regarding living in society. The diverse historical circumstances of Colombia run through his bibliography as a perfect setting to attack more universal notions of the world.
Top 3 recommended novels by Evelio Rosero
House of fury
It is April 1970 and the imposing Caicedo house, located in one of the most distinguished neighborhoods of Bogotá, is preparing to celebrate the wedding anniversary of the family's patriarchs: Alma Santacruz and Magistrate Nacho Caicedo. The day and the festivities advance, at the same time that a parade of various characters - who enter and leave the place - intertwine their stories and seal their destinies in life, pleasure and death.
With dizzying pace and explosive prose, Evelio Rosero returns with a bizarre tragicomedy that exudes doses of black humor and drama, and makes a lapidary portrait of a society used to partying to the rhythm of its passions while catastrophe unleashes. House of fury It is a story that removes foundations and immerses the reader in fundamental questions about Colombia, the human condition and the origin of violence.
The armies
Ismael, an elderly retired teacher, and his wife, Otilia, have lived in the town of San José for four decades. Ismael likes to spy on his neighbor's wife, and Otilia tends to scold him, embarrassed. Until the idyllic atmosphere of the town becomes rare. Some disappearances spread fear among the inhabitants of San José and appear to prelude even more serious events.
One morning, after returning from a walk, Ismael learns that some soldiers from he does not know which army have taken his neighbors. The attacks continue and, when violence breaks out, the survivors decide to flee before it is too late. But Ismael chooses to stay in the devastated town. A decision that will reveal a dark and unpredictable destiny.
Plum Plum
The motives for homicide, considered as the hallmark of the person capable of killing a fellow human being, suppose a descent into the conditions of all kinds that can lead to that violent reaction that is more or less treacherous, casual or premeditated, chain or isolated. Toño Ciruelo is the monster capable of materializing that calmed drive for every human, stripping himself of all filters and freeing himself from the prevailing morality, from the individual to the universal.
Despite my rather transcendent introduction, what we do in this book is seek an impossible empathy with circumstances, education, emotions and everything that ends up forging Toño Ciruelo as a murderer. When we know of a murder, we immediately consider the psychopath, someone marked by the genetic or the traumatic, overcome by some kind of insurmountable fear or by an uncontrollable resentment, or perhaps a mixture of all of this.
The one who helps us in this case in recreating Toño Ciruelo's profile is Eri Salgado. She is the one who makes us participate in the vital passing of the one who is capable of murder. Is the murderer born or made? Could someone who is going to kill have been a normal person? Doubts that we are discovering to the rhythm of a narrative of sublime literature of the human in all its aspects.
In the background there is some theatricalization in the life of Toño Ciruelo. He knows that his desire to kill is not common and that is why he has to adopt masks with which to adapt to each moment of his life. His unpredictable fondness for the death of others is detailed by Eri in a unique study of the murderer.
Common aspects with any other person and unique nuances that make Toño the monster that he ends up being. Differences more or less palpable, amazing coincidences with the common of mortals and definitive facts that are born from the trivial. Trying to understand the crucial moment in which someone turns off the light of another similar being ...
