Fernando Vallejo

Fernando Vallejo (2008)

Fernando Vallejo Rendón (born October 24, 1942 in Medellín , Antioquia) is a Colombian-born Mexican writer , director , screenwriter and biologist .

resume

Fernando Vallejo grew up in Medellín. He studied philosophy for a year at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá. After dropping out, he studied biology at the Universidad Javeriana . He then traveled to Europe and studied directing for a year at the Cinecittà in Rome. After graduating, he traveled to Germany, where he bought his first video camera (in Munich).

He returned to Colombia with the project to make a film about the violence in Colombia. The Colombian authorities made the production of the film very difficult, so Vallejo decided to shoot the film in Mexico . The finished work could not be shown in Colombia because the national television and cinema committee classified Vallejos film as "provoking violence" and censored it. After this incident, Vallejo decided to leave Colombia.

He has lived in Mexico since 1971, where he made two more films about Colombia in the 1970s. In Mexico he not only created his cinematographic work, but also wrote his entire literary oeuvre. Vallejo is the author of a grammar of literary language, three critical volumes of essays on biology, physics and the Catholic Church, two biographies of well-known Colombian poets. He wrote nine novels. In 2003 he received the prestigious “ Rómulo Gallego ” literary prize and donated the 100,000 euro prize to the street dogs of Caracas. In April 2007, the government granted him Mexican citizenship. On May 8, 2007, he gave up his Colombian citizenship. In 2011 he received the Juan Rulfo Prize .

Quotes

• “Colombia, little Colombia… land of murderers, raven fatherland, whorehearted womb of Spain, who are you killing, you madman?”
  (The Abyss).

Works

Narrative works

• Mi hermano el alcalde (2004)

Autobiographies

• The Madonna of the Murderers (La virgen de los sicarios) (1994)
• El río del tiempo (1999). Collected works of:
  • Blue Days (Los días azules) (1985)
  • El fuego secreto (1987)
  • Los caminos a Roma (1988)
  • Años de indulgencia (1989)
  • Entre fantasmas (1993)
• The Abyss ( El desbarrancadero ) (2001). Awarded the Rómulo Gallegos Literature Prize (2003)
• La rambla paralela (2002)
• Mi hermano el alcalde (2004)

La Puta de Babilonia (2007)

biography

• El mensajero (1991), a biography about Porfirio Barba Jacob.
• Almas en pena, chapolas negras (1995), a biography about José Asunción Silva.

Literary studies

• Logoi. Una gramática del lenguaje literario (1983)

science

• La tautología darwinista (1998)
• Manualito de imposturología física (2005)

essay

• La puta de Babilonia (2007)

Filmography

• Crónica roja (1977)
• En la tormenta (1980)
• Barrio de campeones (1983)

Script adaptation

• The Madonna of the Murderers (La virgen de los sicarios) (2000)

Awards

• 2011: FIL Prize

Web links

• Literature by and about Fernando Vallejo in the catalog of the German National Library
• Literature by and about Fernando Vallejo in the catalog of the Ibero-American Institute of Prussian Cultural Heritage, Berlin