Abstract

The article reads García Márquez’s journalistic novel News of a Kidnapping against the grain, demonstrating its potential for interrogating unifying narratives about global legality. The argument has several parts. First, it builds upon a careful textual and structural analysis of the literary work in question, parsing out the suggestive complexities of the novel’s narrative voice and metaphors as they confront issues of transnational legitimacy. Secondly, it examines how García Márquez’s narrative, perhaps unintentionally, engages with and buttresses the selective suspension of legality in Colombia (“the exception”). Special attention is given to the Colombian constitutional reform movement in this context, as well as to the novel’s grappling with the contradictions of reasserting legality through lawless means. Heuristically, News of a Kidnapping is then measured against contemporary judicial decisions. In closing, the article situates the novel within the panorama of contemporary legal and literary studies pertaining to the global drug trade.

摘要

文章阅读了加西亚·马尔克斯的新闻小说《绑架新闻》与谷物背道而驰，展示了它在质疑关于全球合法性的统一叙述方面的潜力。论证有几个部分。首先，它建立在对相关文学作品进行仔细的文本和结构分析的基础上，分析了小说叙事声音和隐喻在面临跨国合法性问题时的暗示性复杂性。其次，它考察了加西亚·马尔克斯的叙述如何，也许是无意的，参与并支持了哥伦比亚的合法性选择性中止（“例外”）。在此背景下特别关注哥伦比亚的宪法改革运动，以及小说通过不法手段重申合法性的矛盾。启发式地，绑架新闻然后根据当代司法判决来衡量。最后，本文将这部小说置于与全球毒品贸易有关的当代法律和文学研究的全景中。