Can the sicarios speak? Voice and testimony of the sicario as a subaltern subject in fiction

Abstract

This article seeks to investigate the notion of the subaltern subject and its inherent enunciative-discursive incapacity in the sicaresque novel. In the first place, the relationship between the literate and the subaltern will be analysed from the theoretical-critical approach provided by the studies of Dr. Margarita Jácome and Dr. Oscar Osorio, dialoguing the positions of both academics and emphasising the narrative-linguistic strategies that they identify within two constitutive novels of the genre: La Virgen de los sicarios by Fernando Vallejo and Sangre ajena by Arturo Alape. Secondly, the narrative structure of Cachorro by Charlie Becerra will be analysed, with special attention to the figure of the narrator and his voice, with the aim of exploring the possibility of subverting the literate-subaltern dialectic and thereby endowing the sicario character with an autonomous voice and an enunciative-discursive capacity as a subalternised subject. Finally, having established this possible autonomy, the narrative-figural discourse of Cachorro will be analysed through the work of quotations in order to discern the purpose of this discourse and the ethical implications of giving a voice to the sicario in fiction.