Introduction

I would like to begin with a quote from the scholar of Colombian literature J. Eduardo Jaramillo-Zuluaga (1957–2008), in which he states that the greatest pleasure in reviewing recent Colombian narrative is returning to previously known works; in doing so, we restore the certainty of our perplexity. He refers to the greatest pleasure of literature as the moment in which one revisits these past texts; in exploring a different meaning, they betray the interpretations attributed to them in previous readings. Needless to say, understanding the representation of contemporary queer narrative in Colombia continues to enlighten us today about issues that concerned the earliest Colombian queer writers.

The word “perplexity” is accurate in describing the extraordinary literary production and cultural work that queer writer Porfirio Barba Jacob produced in his poetry in the early twentieth century. He was an extraordinary poet and has been followed and never forgotten for his contributions to Colombian literature. Marta Elena Casaús Arzú appropriately describes some of his pursuits as follows:

He was a gay writer at a time when being homosexual was considered a disgrace and reason enough to be alienated from mainline Colombian society. His great poems describe a deep anxiety that can be understood as a state of being “displaced,” a feeling about which other Colombian queer writers have written in a variety of texts. Some queer writers have chosen exile to other countries as the solution. I define “exile” as a condition for queer authors, given that many queer Colombian writers have lived or are living in exile. Exile can be understood not only as leaving one's country, but also leaving small towns for large cities, or leaving the nuclear family for different groups that are more receptive.