Rafael Chaparro Madiedo

Rafael Chaparro Madiedo (23 December 1963 – 18 April 1995) was a Colombian writer who won the National Literature Prize in 1992 for his novel Opio en las nubes.

Born in Bogotá on 23 December 1963, he was the first child of a Santanderean family that settled in the capital shortly before his birth. His father was Rafael Chaparro Beltrán, an engineer, and his mother was Aminta Madiedo, a teacher. Rafael Chaparro Madiedo's childhood and adolescence were spent in the Niza neighbourhood, north of the city, long before the Boulevard Niza Shopping Centre and Suba Avenue were built. This neighbourhood, which would later become the subject of several of his journalistic articles, was the place of his childhood, friends, games, and the slow transition from childhood to maturity.^[1]

His school years were spent at Colegio Helvetia, where his literary inclination became evident through his participation in theatrical works. Chaparro Madiedo was not only the intellectual with a cigarette on his lips seen in his photographs, but someone with a great sense of humour who, from childhood, enjoyed sports and games, was a football fan, and liked to spend time with his friends.

After finishing secondary school, Chaparro Madiedo enrolled at the University of Los Andes, one of the country's most important institutions, to study Philosophy and Letters. This would be his decisive step into a writing career. There he founded the magazine Hojalata with two classmates, Andrés Huertas and Felipe Castañeda. This publication, which the government suspected of being revolutionary, led to Chaparro Madiedo being formally investigated, but the matter had no consequences and no charges were filed against him. At the University of Los Andes he met Jorge Mario Eastman, through whom he began working as cultural editor for Consigna magazine. He also befriended Paula Arenas, who invited him to participate in a project by the film production company Cinevisión; it was a humour and political satire programme called Zoociedad. With the same production company he would participate in Quac and La Brújula Mágica.^[2]

In 1987 he graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters with a thesis on Martin Heidegger titled: Interpretaciones de los estados de ánimo como experiencias ontológicas con base en "Ser y Tiempo" (Interpretations of moods as ontological experiences based on "Being and Time"). He then travelled to Montpellier for further studies and upon returning began working for La Prensa; he would collaborate with this newspaper writing articles throughout his short life. In 1989 he travelled to Cuba to attend García Márquez's screenwriting course. That same year he met Ava Echeverri, who would be his wife until 1993. In 1990 he began Zoociedad with Paula Arenas, Karl Troller, and Eduardo Arias; and in 1993 La Brújula Mágica. In 1994 he travelled to Paris and visited Jim Morrison's grave; he met Virginie, a French woman who would be his girlfriend for a short time. His girlfriend in his final period, Claudia Sánchez, a colleague from La Brújula Mágica, accompanied him until the end, when he died at the Santa Fe clinic from lupus, a disease that had afflicted him since he was twenty.

He died at one o'clock in the morning on 18 April 1995 at the Santa Fe clinic in Bogotá, victim of lupus.^[3]

The novel Opio en las nubes,^[4] whose rhythm and mixture of narrative techniques bring to mind a James Joyce influenced by LSD and addicted to rock, has been harshly attacked by the most conservative literary criticism, which considers it a banal work. Meanwhile, many young people from Colombian underground culture have made it a cult book. But it is unquestionable that its success among the public—mainly young people—transcends its country of origin and is read in different parts of the world.^[5]

In mid-2012 the Spanish publisher Tropo managed to publish the novel for the first time after negotiating with the writer's father, who was the sole holder of the rights to the work.

Written and revised by Chaparro Madiedo before his death, El pájaro Speed y su banda de corazones maleantes is the continuation of that pursuit of a style more concerned with sensations than grammar. In this search, Rafael Chaparro detaches himself from syntax and gives way to his oneiric, surreal style. He appropriates language and transforms it. The work is full of a new language that rests on symbols, repetition, and the relevance of words as image.

The novel is an experimentation with forms and language, the same enterprise he had carried out in Opio en las nubes, but now in a more audacious, unbridled manner.

The book consists of fifteen short stories, whose titles are: "La Caída" (The Fall), "La lluvia, ese extraño sentimiento" (Rain, that strange feeling), "La extraña continuidad de las astromelias" (The strange continuity of alstroemerias), "Bradbury a mil pies de altura" (Bradbury a thousand feet high), "El polvo de las estrellas sobre tu cuerpo" (Stardust on your body), "Zaratustra come peces de vidrio en Praga" (Zarathustra eats glass fish in Prague), "La máquina de hacer tigres" (The tiger-making machine), "La orquesta roja del amanecer" (The red orchestra of dawn), "Chocolate espeso en los vapores del nirvana" (Thick chocolate in the vapours of nirvana), "Dios no cree en novelas policíacas" (God doesn't believe in detective novels), "La pequeña confusión de la sangre" (The small confusion of blood), "John Tigres", "El pez gato que engullía pianos negros" (The catfish that devoured black pianos), "Las cuatrocientas espadas del brandy" (The four hundred swords of brandy), "Coñac para dos perros y un gato" (Cognac for two dogs and a cat), and "La sustancia absurda de Hendrix a las seis de la mañana" (The absurd substance of Hendrix at six in the morning). According to Claudia Sánchez, the title was born one day when she and Rafael were browsing through a book they had bought, Viejo, by Adriano González León, and Claudia cut herself on one of the pages and said the phrase "siempre es saludable perder sangre" (it's always healthy to lose blood). At that moment Chaparro, who was looking for a title for the aforementioned book of stories, asked Claudia if he could use it. She said of course.

• Ambulancia con whisky (blog tribute to Chaparro)