Decoding political violence in memoirs of an unknown soldier

Abstract

Literature, among other things, recreates different realities. This academic essay focuses on analysing politic violence in the book “When rain became floods” which, more than a simple memoir, showing the similarities among three unalike contexts, above mentioned, has become a reflection of Peru's struggle for reconciliation with its violent past through remembrance of forgotten moments of misery and despair as well as acts of cruelty and humanity, all of them reflecting notions of nation and moments of trauma, which were told resorting to memory so readers are able to understand actions and reactions of its main character, who attempts to take in what happened and tries to get over a remote memories trauma. To explain the significance of politic violence in this story, we take Gavilán’s chronicles which is a gripping autobiography of a child guerrilla, soldier, Franciscan monk, and finally, a doctoral student of anthropology at Mexico’s Iberoamericana University.