Archival operations in post-dictatorship novels: memory and Chilean human rights records

Abstract

ABSTRACT The junction between the memory of violence of the past and fictional registry is a dimension of post-dictatorial society’s cultural dynamics. While the testimonial narrative is dominant in the literary sphere, the archive as a repository of memory and documental inscription, with the capacity to iterate and transit from one social field to another, challenges regimes of truth and lineal temporality of official memory. This article identifies, characterises and compares the way in which records are employed in contemporary Chilean post-dictatorship narrative. The archive enables us to problematise and contextualise the relation to the recent dictatorial past and the opening up of new fields of reflection. The incorporation of records in four recent Chilean post-dictatorship novels (Puño y Letra by Eltit; Sprinters, Los Niños de Colonia Dignidad by Larra; La Dimensión Desconocida by Fernández and Monte Maravilla by Lafferte) is achieved through quotes or theme development. Such resources bring to light the fascination as well as the scepticism that archives generate in literature, as well as their effectiveness for expressing the intricate, and even contradictory, mechanisms of memory.