Necropolitics in the Andes: Reading the Senderista As Sovereign Subject or As Subject of Sovereignty in Two Peruvian Novels

This paper discusses ways in which literary representations of senderistas strive to humanise the figure of the necropolitically-defined state 'enemy' and do so within the broad moment of neoliberal consensus-building around the friend-enemy division in Peru. Drawing on Achille Mbembe'...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Bulletin of Spanish studies (2002) Vol. 97; no. 8; pp. 1363 - 1388
Main Author: Hunt, Rosanna
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Routledge 13.09.2020
Subjects:
Literature
Peru
Roncagliolo
Sendero Luminoso
Shining Path
terrorism
Vargas Llosa
ISSN:1475-3820, 1478-3428
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper discusses ways in which literary representations of senderistas strive to humanise the figure of the necropolitically-defined state 'enemy' and do so within the broad moment of neoliberal consensus-building around the friend-enemy division in Peru. Drawing on Achille Mbembe's reformulation of biopolitics, the paper offers close readings of Vargas Llosa's Lituma en los Andes (1994) and Roncagliolo's Abril rojo (2006). Where Vargas Llosa's rehumanising of the individual senderista leaves the absolutely enmity of Sendero Luminoso as 'terror' intact, Roncagliolo recasts the senderista as an irreducibly complex subject defined as much as victim as perpetrator of violence.
ISSN:1475-3820
1478-3428
DOI:10.1080/14753820.2020.1804178