ABSTRACT
This chapter studies the recent emergence of travel books about the Colombian experience tailored for a new brand of readers who are captivated by a country of beautiful landscapes amidst the remnants of violent conflict. By examining the foreign “I/eye” as purveyor of the commodification of “Colombian violence,” this chapter sheds light on the economic and cultural conditions that have promoted the emergence of a global market for this genre. Examples can be found in Ramón Chao’s The Train of Ice and Fire: Mano Negra in Colombia (2010; orig. 1994), Stephen Smith’s Cocaine Train (1999); Matthew Thompson’s My Colombian Death (2008); Michael Jacobs’s The Robber of Memories (2012); and Tom Feiling’s Short Walks from Bogotá (2012). By analyzing these travelogues (and their colonial and cosmopolitan views of Colombia), the buoyant travel industry and travel literature anchored in the Colombian condition attest to a unique combination of pure leisure, dark tourism, and humanitarian advocacy that is highly symptomatic of today’s cultural market.
