|
Fernando Vallejo Rendón is a novelist, filmmaker and essayist, born in Colombia. He obtained Mexican nationality in 2007.
Vallejo was born and raised in MedellÃn, though he left his hometown early in life. He started studies in Philosophy at the National University of Colombia in Bogotá, but after one year he abandoned the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters. Soon after he began new studies on biology at the Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, which he finished. Then he spent one year in Italy at the film academy Cinecittà , where he obtained basic notions on cinema.
Vallejo then returned to Colombia with the project of filmmaking. Yet after difficulties with the Colombian Government in producing and, after he produced it, in presenting his first film, he decided to leave his country.
In Mexico he produced and distributed three films about the violence in Colombia. He also wrote an award-winning children's theater script, "El reino misterioso o Tomás y las abejas." He has been living in Mexico since 1971, where he not only produced his cinematographic pieces, but also the whole of his literary work. Despite time spent in other locales, mainly Europe and the United States, most of his novels take place in Colombia. Some of his themes are grammar, biology, philosophy, physics, violence, pederasty, adolescence, drugs, death and politics, mostly related to places such as Antioquia and MedellÃn; yet his main theme is his life. His books are written in first person, in an autobiographical style, although he manipulates the conventions of autobiography such that the line between autobiography and fiction becomes significantly blurred.
|
