“Se acabaron las medias tintas”: Memoria, representación y violencia política en la literatura y cine peruano (1986 – 2013)

Abstract

This thesis provides an interdisciplinary study of the representation of political violence in Perú in the works Adiós, Ayacucho (1986), a novel written by Julio Ortega, La boca del lobo (1989), a film directed by Francisco Lombardi, Rosa Cuchillo (1996), a novel written by Oscar Colchado Lucio, La teta asustada (2009), a film directed by Claudia Llosa and La sangre de la aurora (2013), a novel written by Claudia Salazar, and examines how these representations are related to issues of social structure such as power, race and class. This work analyses the origin of political upheaval in Perú in the context of the armed conflict during the 1980s and 1990s, as well as the aftermath of the conflict. It focuses in the critical analysis of dominance and power trough racism against indigenous populations as a component of the violence in the nation from a socio-political and cultural approach. It argues that language plays a central role in the discourses of literary works because these preserve a subjacent and systemic violence. The theories of violence and power of Slajov Žižek, Giorgio Agamben, Michel Foucault and Hannah Arendt provides the theoretical framework that facilitates the understanding of political violence in Peru, as well as its true causes and socio-cultural ramifications in this country.