The Fall of Santiago de Chile in Post-Dictatorship Literature (1990-2020)

Abstract

<p>Much of the literature published following the return to democracy after Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship between 1973 and 1990 in Chile presents a ‘lamentational’ tone. Not only understood as a lamentation through the exploration of the <em>ubi sunt</em> motif and expressions of mourning, but also the destruction of the Chilean capital in concrete and symbolic terms is central to the understanding of current Chilean identity and culture. As Santiago is constantly reinventing itself, literary depictions of the city offer a good example of literature representative of what Chile has had to endure as the regime changed the political and social landscape for decades to come. The analytical corpus will consist of three literary texts: <em>Escrito en Braille </em>(Written in Braille) by Alejandra Del Río (1999), <em>Mapocho </em>(Mapocho River) by Nona Fernández (2002), and <em>Santiago Waria & Santiago Rabia</em> (Santiago City and Santiago Rage) by Elvira Hernández (2016), which depict the aftermath of the destruction of the Santiago. The analysis will consider Jeremiah’s <em>Lamentations</em> as the basis of the texts’ tone, and memory studies perspectives by Elizabeth Jelin and Nelly Richard as theoretical framework allowing researchers to approach how the city keeps—or does not keep—secrets of its infamous authoritarian past.</p>