Peddling Pablo: Escobar’s Cultural Renaissance

Nearly two decades after his death, Pablo Escobar has reemerged in a number of autobiographical publications that revisit the era of the Medellín cartel and its most infamous capo. Rather than providing strictly historical information, these texts adopt an anecdotal and intimate angle from the positions of Escobar’s hitman, his lover, his siblings, and his only son. The recent plethora of Escobar-themed bestsellers signals a collective need to confront the capo’s evil in order to bring closure to what can be considered his inner circle and the Colombian nation. It also underscores the tension between the state’s desire to curtail Escobar’s growing myth and the concomitant trends in popular culture and mass media that celebrate Escobar and the crass narcolifestyle. While the former strives to divorce the national image from narcoterrorism, the latter has found a new marketable commodity in Colombia and abroad.