Aucayacu: from the traumatic memory to the poetics of mourning

Abstract

Like other Andean-Amazonian territories in Peru, the Upper Huallaga Valley has been associated with enduring social representations that link it to drug trafficking and terrorism. This study analyzes the political and social significance of extreme violence in Aucayacu, district of José Crespo y Castillo (Huánuco), in the heart of the valley, based on four recent literary productions on a local scale. I argue that these hybrid works of memorialistic cut - halfway between testimonial narrative and literary fiction - are of great value, as they offer situated and challenging inputs to the discursive production on extreme violence, reinserting traditionally silenced memories and opening a space of historiographic dissent of enormous critical potential on the hegemonic discourse proposed by the narratives of oblivion or salvation.