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Ayacucho, Goodbye And The Portrayal Of A Nation's Contradictions, Oswaldo Gavidia Cannon

Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective

During the 1980s and early 1990s, Peru lived difficult times with the escalation of terrorism. People living in the Andean rural areas were caught between two fires- the terrorists and the military sent to control the latter- and many innocent people were killed or disappeared. Based on these events, Julio Ortega wrote the novella Ayacucho, Goodbye. In this narrative, the dead body of an indigenous peasant leaves his grave in Ayacucho and begins a journey to Lima, the capital of Peru, looking for the parts of his body that were not buried with him, which is really a quest …