MEMOIRS OF A FORMER GUERRILLA: NARRATIVES FROM THE ARAGUAIA GUERRILLA WAR IN AZUL CORVO (2014)

Abstract

: In Azul Corvo (2014), Adriana Lisboa portrays the events of the Araguaia Guerrilla War from the perspective of a former guerrilla, Fernando. It is from his accounts that we can revisit the past, since he exposes episodes that are not part of the official history. In this sense, the present study aims to reconstruct the history of the Araguaia Guerrilla War through the exile’s point of view. Furthermore, we also seek to understand how generational memory contributes to the retaking of the historical past, given that it extends to many other generations and brings to light the sufferings experienced by the direct victims of the dictatorship. To this end, we resorted to the studies of Márcio Seligmann-Silva (1999), Paul Ricoeur (2003), Alfredo Bosi (2002), Tânia Sarmento-Pantoja (2010), Augusto Sarmento-Pantoja (2012; 2019), among others. The relationship between the critical-theoretical considerations worked on by the researchers and the narrations, the representations of the past, and the reconstruction of memory about Brazilian history help us realize that the events described by the ex-guerrilla build knowledge about an unknown past and transmit the experience lived in traumatic moments, so that the character’s experiences and perspectives also become part of our memory.