A black-and-white photo shows four people standing outdoors in front of a large building, seemingly a theater. Andrés Caicedo is second from the left, with long, dark hair, dark-rimmed glasses. He is wearing a white short and stands with one hand on his hip, the other touching his slightly open mouth.
Area Studies, Benson Latin American Collection, Humanities & Liberal Arts

Benson Collection Acquires Archive of Andrés Caicedo

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By ADRIAN JOHNSON

The Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection is pleased to announce the acquisition of literary and family archives of Colombian writer Andrés Caicedo. This collection joins other important regional literary collections of writers such as César Vallejo, Augusto Roa Bastos, and Julio Cortázar, increasing the importance of the Benson as a destination for students, faculty, and researchers from the United States, Latin America, and beyond.

Front page of an open book. On the right, inside a black border, a drawing in black ink of a young man with 1970s-style hair, a large chin and pursed lips, and clothing, dark sunglasses, a chain brandished in one hand and a large, bloody knife in the other. He stands in front of a graffitied wall that has a large area of its outer coating missing. His thin legs, in jeans, are in a wide stance. The title of the book, El Atravesado, is written vertically bottom to top along the left-hand side of the border in rough, handwritten all capitals; the name of the author, Andrés Caicedo, is written in the same style along the right-hand side.
Title page of “El Atravesado.” Benson Latin American Collection.

Within a decade of the publication of 100 Years of Solitude, which propelled Gabriel García Márquez and Colombia to the forefront of the Latin American literary scene, a 21-year-old Caicedo was self-publishing his first novela. El Atravesado (1975) was printed with a stamp opposite the title page reading Pirata Ediciones de Calidad (Pirata Quality Editions). Adorning the cover is a Ramones-esque sketch that the author had copied and enhanced from a bootlegged Rolling Stones album cover: a sunglasses-clad rebellious youth in front of a deteriorating and graffitied wall, a chain in one hand and a bloody knife in the other, ready for a fight. The story is one of youth in street gangs who have lost all faith in adulthood, living in the chaos of urban disorder, brawls, and parties, who yearn for a better world.

Inside cover of a book, with author's name, title, and publisher's seal. There is messy handwriting all over the page. On the left, you can see the dark illustration of a man, similar to that of the cover, from the previous page bleeding through.
Inside cover of “El Atravesado,” with handwritten dedication and Ediciones Pirata seal. Benson Latin American Collection.

An intellectually curious lover of movies and letters, Caicedo began writing at the age of 10 and never stopped. He wrote plays, published stories in newspapers, and published Ojo al Cine, a film magazine that ran from 1974 to 1976. On March 4, 1977, at the age of 25, just after receiving the editor’s copy of his first published full-length novel, Que viva la música, Caicedo died by suicide. Que viva la música went on to become his best-known work, and would give voice to a generation of Colombia’s youth, offering a socially realistic alternative to the magical realism of García Márquez and other writers of the Latin American Boom.

A magazine cover features a very faded and large image of a woman's eyes, nose, and mouth—close-up of a face, in pale grays. The title of the magazine, "Ojo al Cine" is printed in bold black type, all lower-case, along the bottom, in addition to the number 5 in a circle. Along the borders of the cover are names of authors and other writing, including the magazine's subtitle, "La crítica cinematográfica en Cuba y América Latina."
Cover of issue 5 of the film criticism magazine “Ojo al Cine.” Benson Latin American Collection.

Caicedo already had a loyal following by the time of his death, but most of his writing was never published, or was limited to local and serial publications. His father, with whom he had fraught relations, discovered many of his manuscripts several years after his death. He led the creation of a family foundation dedicated to preparing and publishing the entire corpus of Caicedo’s writing. Caicedo’s renown has continued growing as publications are translated and published until today.

Yellowed newspaper clippings from a film review in Spanish are arranged on a white background show the large title of a review of the Godfather Part 2 by Andrés Caicedo with the made-up onomatopoeic word "uuuuuuuuggf" in it. The title of the publication, at top, is El Pueblo Estravagario, dated Sunday, October 19, 1975.
Review of “The Godfather 2” by Andrés Caicedo, including creative use of onomatopoeia, published in El Pueblo Estravagario.

The Andrés Caicedo Collection contains materials collected by the author’s sister, Rosario Caicedo, and includes manuscripts, photographs, correspondence, rare publications, press clippings, and family photo albums. Some of the most important documents in the collection are letters to and from his parents, Carlos Alberto and Nellie Estela, and his sister, Rosario, in the last years of his life. Several folders in the collection document Caicedo’s involvement in the Cine Club de Cali, including issues of the magazine Ojo al Cine. Finally, family photo albums of his parents and grandparents document the life of his family in the first decades of the twentieth century.

A yellowed sheet of unlined paper, edges badly damaged with stains in some areas, contains a typewritten letter from the author to his father, whom he addresses are Carlos Alberto. It is signed in blue pen.
Letter from Caicedo to his father, signed ‘Tu Hijo (Que te pesa)’. Benson Latin American Collection.

This collection supplements the Archivo Andrés Caicedo, donated by the family to the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango in Bogotá, Colombia, and helps present a side of Caicedo that brings a wider understanding to his life and his literary corpus. View the contents of the archive at Texas Archival Resources Online.

En español: Read “El Segundo archivo de Andrés Caicedo llega a Texas” by Yefferson Ospina, UT Austin Graduate Research Assistant who worked on processing the archive.

Adrian Johnson is Head of User Services at the Benson Latin American Collection, and Librarian for the Andean Region.

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