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Stains of the Past: Space, Memory, and Postdictatorship in Luis Fernando Veríssimo's A mancha
Author(s) -
RAJCA ANDREW C.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
bulletin of latin american research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.24
H-Index - 33
eISSN - 1470-9856
pISSN - 0261-3050
DOI - 10.1111/blar.12517
Subject(s) - narrative , betrayal , commodification , rhetoric , space (punctuation) , sociology , pathos , dictatorship , politics , aesthetics , literature , art , philosophy , political science , law , linguistics , democracy , market economy , economics
This article examines the relationship between space, memory, and the effects of B razil's military dictatorship (1964–1985) presented in Luis Fernando Veríssimo's 2004 short story, A mancha (‘ The Stain ’). Although simple in structure, the narrative touches upon complex themes in postdictatorship: engaging with past trauma and political differences that cut across family relationships, conflicting notions of betrayal, the urban processes associated with capitalism, and the commodification of memory itself. I argue that the ‘stain’ traced in A mancha goes beyond the normalised rhetoric of postdictatorial memory, as the narrative both maintains and traces marginalised subjectivities of postdictatorship through its engagement with material and discursive spatial production in B razil.