From lazarillo de tormes to la virgen de los sicarios: the World of the criminal in the picaresque and the sicaresque novel

Abstract

The picaresque has been in vogue throughout more than four centuries since the publication of Larzarillo de Tormes, and new morks its repertoire continue to be incorporated in new works today. The picaresque genre is broad and varied, providing a number of possible connections with contemporary literature. In this essay, I will connect the picaresque with the “sicaresque”. I choose the term “sicaresque” because of its similarity to the word “picaresque”, also because of the parallels between the picaresque of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and he Colombian “sicaresque” of the last part of the twentieth century.