'Clear and Present Danger': Trauma, Memory and Laura Restrepo's La novia oscura

Abstract

This article deals with questions of trauma and memory in contemporary Colombian society and culture. It begins with an outline of the multifarious forms of violence that have pervaded Colombian history and underlines how they have led to a tendency towards collective amnesia. Within this context, and drawing on some of the work that has been done in this area in cultural studies, I consider the question of literature as cultural memory. I then go on to focus on the work of one of Colombia's foremost women writers, Laura Restrepo. My analysis of her most recent novel La novia oscura (1999) reveals a significant preoccupation with personal and collective trauma and memory, both in terms of content and form. Ultimately, following a reading of the socio-historical contexts of literary production in the light of the work of Walter Benjamin and historian Gonzalo Sanchez, I suggest that we regard Restrepo's novel as a 'flash' of memory at a critical 'moment of danger', which encourages a crucial dialectic between past and present.