Andean Space and Violence in Persona, by José Carlos Agüero

Abstract

Although Peru’s internal conflict (1980-2000) concluded some two decades ago, cultural and ideological sequels remain, as can be observed in different samples of literary discourse by victims and agents involved in the war. In this article, we study in Persona (2017), by Peruvian writer José Carlos Agüero, the discursive configuration of Andean space as it concerns violence. The author is son of “senderistas” killed by Peruvian Army, historian, poet, and a Human Rights activist. In his texts, spatial strokes indicate not only the places where his parents lived, fought and died, but also the place where his identity is built through writing. The dimensions of memory (Todorov, 2000; LaCapra, 2001; Jelin, 2002) are reviewed in order to problematize the space in which victims’ subjectivity is constructed during the post-conflict.