Terruqueo and memory: The representation of armed leftist militants in post-conflict Peruvian cultural production

Hibbett A. · Revista de Estudios Hispanicos (2025) · DOI: 10.1353/rvs.2025.a994459

Resumen

Peruvian cultural production framed within the discourse of duty-memory, according to which remembering the political violence that occurred in the country between 1980 and 2000 is vital for the construction of a democratic nation, has centered on the figure of the innocent victim. This article questions the place given by this production to the representation of armed leftist militants and the extent to which they are depicted as terrorists. Arguing that the logic behind terruqueo—the right-wing strategy of accusing any critics of the State and capitalist system of being terrorists—has surreptitiously conditioned even the most complex Peruvian duty-memory cultural productions, this article offers (counter) readings of three representative cases: the novel La hora azul by Alonso Cueto (2005), the film La última tarde directed by Joel Calero (2016), and the autobiographical essay Los rendidos by José Carlos Agüero (2015). Afterwards, the article offers interpretations of two other productions that take relative distance from the duty-memory framework (the documentary Aquí vamos a morir todos directed by Andrés Mego (2012) and the autobiography Memorias de un soldado desconocido by Lurgio Gavilán (2012)), proposing that they circulate otherwise censored left-wing memories.

Instituciones: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú