Stains of the Past: Space, Memory, and Postdictatorship in Luis Fernando Veríssimo's A mancha

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.