This is not a biography: Fuguet on Caicedo

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the implications of Alberto Fuguet’s reluctance to write a biography of Andres Caicedo, which can be gathered from the author’s characterization of Mi Cuerpo es una Celda (2008) as an “autobiography” and a documentary narrated in the first person, as well as in the reflection on the genre in “the making of ” of the mentioned work, and in the notes for an essay about Caicedo written four years later.

The decisions of the biographer —who assumes the role of a director and editor of the book— represent for us an opportunity to discuss certain critical concerns about the biography as a genre such as the tension between factuality and fiction; reality and text; life and work. In addition, they lead to another specific inquiries related to the particular case of this text which emerge from Fuguet´s research, his confessed passion for Caicedo´s literature and, above all, their shared love of cinema and movies.