Los héroes del mundo degradado: subjetividades endriagas en la narconovela
Heroes of the Degraded World: Monstrous Individuals in the Narconovela

Summary/Abstract: The present article offers an analysis of two Colombian novels that can be qualified as narconovelas: Comandante Paraíso (2002) by Gustavo Álvarez Gardeazábal and Happy Birthday, capo (2008) by José Libardo Porras. Using the term sujetos endriagos proposed by the Mexican philosopher Sayak Valencia, we qualify the narco protagonists as monstrous individuals, main actors of the gore capitalism. We focus on the subjective configuration of the principal actors of the drug trafficking business, to demonstrate a certain axiological ambiguity with which they are being portrayed, and an unusual tension between the heroic and antiheroic elements present in the perception of the protagonists. Published fifteen and nine years ago respectively, Comandante Paraíso and Happy Birthday, capo seem to announce and anticipate something, that in the last years can be generally observed in the popular and mass culture: a rise in the number of narco protagonists, portrayed as characters with complex psychological and moral qualities, whose activities seem to be at least justifiable in the degraded world, filled with the corruption of the politics and traditional elites, and in the reality of the gore capitalism.

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