Volto semana que vem: democracy above all!

Abstract

In the last decades it has been noticed a significant growth of Latin American fictions which have recreated dictatorships established in our continent last century. In Brazil, Maria Pilla’s Volto semana que vem [I will be back next week] (2015) emerges as an important one. In her book, the author recollects events of her childhood and youth, as well as memories of her militancy which was marked by periods in jail in Argentina and exile in France. We consider that Pilla’s fiction makes it possible a productive dialog between literature and history in Latin America, as it brings up characters’ accounts which portray resistance towards civic and military regimes in the Southern Cone. Thus, we intend to examine how the writer has fictionalized the shameful episodes in our continent during regimes of exception. We believe that human rights violations practiced by dictatorial governments cannot be forgotten. Instead, we think of the necessity to practice our duty of memory, following Ricouer (2007). In this sense, this study aims at contributing to memories preservation of democracy defenders, since they are at risk of being erased from the so-called official history. Our theoretical framework is supported by Dalcastagné (1996), Esteves (2010), Figueiredo (2017), Prado and Pelegrino (2016), among others.