Impure Memory, Imperfect Justice: a Comparison of Post-Repression
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Impure Memory, Imperfect Justice: A Comparison of Post-Repression Fiction Across the South Atlantic Norma G. Kaminsky A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2016 Reading Committee: Cynthia Steele, Chair Laura H. Chrisman Monika Kaup Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Comparative Literature © Copyright 2016 Norma G. Kaminsky University of Washington Abstract Impure Memory, Imperfect Justice: A Comparison of Post-Repression Fiction Across the South Atlantic Norma G. Kaminsky Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Cynthia Steele Comparative Literature This dissertation examines literary representations of—and interventions in—the conflicts between memory, justice, and national reconciliation after authoritarian regimes. I compare fiction written during the democratic transitions following apartheid in South Africa and the military dictatorships in Chile and Argentina in the late 20th century. In my analysis, I consider not only how post-dictatorship fiction approaches historically traumatic events, but also what these novels contribute, both to collective memory and to our understanding of the individual and social dimensions of settling accounts with traumatic recent pasts. The novels studied in depth are: Tony Eprile's The Persistence of Memory (South Africa, 2004), Gillian Slovo's Red Dust (South Africa, 2000), María Teresa Andruetto's Lengua madre (Argentina, 2010), Patricio Pron's El espíritu de mis padres sigue subiendo en la lluvia (Argentina, 2011), and Carlos Franz's El desierto (Chile, 2005). My analysis is developed within two complementary theoretical frameworks: collective memory (especially by Maurice Halbwachs and Pierre Nora), and human rights and their intersections with literature (by Andreas Huyssen, Joseph Slaughter, and Sophia McClennen, among others). Thus, my study investigates the relationships between history, memory, and literature from an ethical perspective provided by human rights studies. The questions I contemplate include how narratives address the tensions between history, memory, and truth; the political and aesthetic uses of memory and forgetting in post-authoritarian societies; truth commissions and their representations in literature; the response of younger generations to a traumatic past not personally experienced, but that nevertheless affects them; and how fictional literature contests the politics of amnesia and amnesty embedded in the discourses and acts of national reconciliation in South America and South Africa. I argue that literature of post-authoritarian societies has assumed responsibility for remembering history in order to prevent the repetition of atrocities, and that fiction writers take the liberty and the responsibility to question the discourses pronounced by official entities and reproduced by the media. This probing attitude gives voice to those who are silent (or have been silenced) in society and in government, and nudges the memory and the conscience of others. They also are eloquent examples of the interweaving of fictional text and historical context. The analysis of these research questions shows that, while the South African and Southern Cone post-authoritarian societies are all (still) concerned with issues of memory, truth, justice, and reconciliation, they place different emphasis on each of these issues. These differences, manifest in both the content and form of their fiction, correspond to each country's distinct historical and cultural context. Taking into consideration the similarities and peculiarities of these geographical histories, this comparison of novels corroborates and adds nuance to my hypothesis that fiction offers a possibility of reclaiming memory and challenging the official discourse that champions reconciliation at the expense of memory and justice. Table of Contents Introduction ..........................................................................................................................1 Chapter I: Narrating Memory ............................................................................................32 Chapter II: From Exile to Nomadism ................................................................................96 Chapter III: Imperfect Justice ..........................................................................................134 Chapter IV: Legacies of Authoritarian Rule ....................................................................164 Conclusion: Truth-Telling Fiction ...................................................................................198 Appendix ..........................................................................................................................213 Works Cited .....................................................................................................................215 Acknowledgments I would like to express my appreciation to my advisor, Cynthia Steele, for her patient reading of my drafts, her feedback, and her consistent encouragement and support. I thank Laura Chrisman for asking probing questions and nudging me to deepen my thinking. Monika Kaup was generous with her time, allowing discussions in the early stages of this project that helped me to conceptualize it and bring it to completion. These three committee members have been my mentors and role models since I started my doctoral studies at the University of Washington. I am grateful for the Elizabeth Kerr Macfarlane Endowed Scholarship for 2015- 2016, which allowed me to devote more time to writing late drafts. To my partner Jeff Jordan I will always be thankful for his honest questioning, his patient proofreading, and his loving unconditional support. To all, gracias. 1 Introduction The transnational violence that ushered in the 21st century is establishing a new paradigm of how the world is structured at a global scale. The "us vs. them" division is no longer defined by the polarized ideologies of the Cold War, but rather by a struggle for resources framed by religious, ethnic, and national distinctions often defined and enforced through violence. Artists of every discipline have begun to express this shift in our world view; their productions coexist with artistic expressions that work with remnants of the memory of traumatic events of the past century. Thus, decades after the fall of the military regimes in South America and the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa, literary fiction from these areas is still representing and questioning the legal, social, and personal processes that developed during the repressive regimes and in response to each nation's transition to democracy. This dissertation examines not only how post-dictatorship fiction approaches historically traumatic events, but also what those texts contribute to our collective memory and to our understanding of traumatic recent pasts. This encompasses the individual, as well as the social, dimensions of coming to terms with the trauma caused by the violation of human rights at a national level. My research is guided by two kinds of questions. The first is generic: I ask about the form and function of narration: How do the act of narrating and the narrative choices intervene in processes of memory, recovery from trauma, and the pursuit of justice? In other words, how does narration operate in addressing amnesia, imagining the possibility of justice, and envisioning the prospect of reconciliation at the national, familial, and personal levels? The second kind of question addresses historical events and their social and political aftereffects: How are the injuries 2 caused by state terror on persons and collectives represented in literature? How do individuals reconstruct lives and identities truncated by the horror imposed by the state? Post-dictatorship social conditions such as personal and national amnesia are intertwined with political and institutional procedures, such as unofficial politics of remembering and forgetting, and the official establishment of truth (and sometimes reconciliation) commissions (TCs). Both types of mechanisms—the subjective and the political- institutional—are employed by societies to settle accounts with the past. Narration in the form of legal testimony, memoir, historical account, and fiction, is one avenue for accomplishing this resolution, as the works analyzed in this dissertation illustrate. My corpus consists of five novels—chosen because each provides a different perspective that brings to the forefront connections between personal experiences and national trauma. These five novels offer a 21st century perspective of events that occurred in the previous century (and, in three cases, in the previous generation) in order to comment on the present. The South African experience of apartheid and its aftershocks is taken up in two novels: Tony Eprile's The Persistence of Memory (2004), in the form of a personal memoir of a man unable to forget; and Red Dust (2000), where Gillian Slovo works through the problem of the undecidability of memory distorted by torture. The Chilean dictatorship, its abuses, and its long-reaching effects are addressed in Carlos Franz's El desierto (2005; The Absent Sea, 2011) by interpellating today's young adults, and explaining the traumatic past from the perspective of the older generation. Franz's novel also makes explicit the topic of collaboration with the oppressor. Argentines' experience of state terror across generations is central to both María Teresa