Bogotá: Faces of marginalization and juvenile offending in three stories by Luis Fayad

Abstract

Through his literary work, Colombian writer Luis Fayad has been linked to urban themes. Several of his stories and novels revolve around the social fabric of a widely fragmented Bogotá. In this study, three short stories in which Fayad reflects on urban marginality are analyzed. The protagonists are minors who idly roam and live on the streets participating in unlawful behavior. These texts document the marginal reality that occurred in Bogotá over the sixties and seventies. These narratives, beyond their aesthetic merits, establish the memory of the city, revealing a failed social project, and an ineffective plan of modernization.