Through an exploration of the cultural processes that perpetuate the "darker side" of Latin America for global consumption, this book investigates the "condition" that has led writers, filmmakers, and artists to embrace (purposefully or not) the incessant violence in Colombian society as the object of their own creative endeavors.

Alejandro Herrero-Olaizola is Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He is the author of The Censorship Files: Latin American Writers and Franco's Spain (2007) and Narrativas híbridas: parodia y posmodernismo en la ficción contemporánea de las Américas (2000), and co-editor of Market Matters (Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies), Teaching the Latin American Boom (2015), and Territories of Conflict: Traversing Colombia Through Cultural Studies (2017). His articles have appeared in Symposium, Revista Crítica de Literatura Latinoamericana, Hispanófila, MLN, and Hispanic Review. Currently, he is the Editor of Revista de Estudios Colombianos. His research has been supported by the NEH, ACLS, and Fulbright fellowships.

Introduction: The Colombian Condition

Chapter 1: Narco-Stories Globalized: Pablo Escobar and Excess Consumption

Chapter 2: The Ingrid Betancourt Story: Memory in the Times of Mass Media

Chapter 3: The Travelogue Boom: Dark Exoticism for Global Consumption

Chapter 4: Affective Visuality: The Cinema of Conflict and Reconciliation

Epilogue: Post-Conflict Colombia?