Looking Elsewhere: Editorial Amartí’s (Re)presentation of Post/Conflict Ayacucho

Since the onset of Peru’s Internal Armed Conflict (~1980-2000), Peruvian writers have worked to narrate often unspeakable violences, contributing a still-developing “Conflict Canon.” Yet while overwhelmingly impacted Indigenous individuals from nation’s rural Andean highlands and jungle lowlands, most critically acclaimed bestselling narrations predominantly belong white men means Lima. These depictions civil war written for/from capital frequently reproduce tired geo-racial imaginaries, taking their cue Mario Vargas Llosa’s polemic analysis 1983 murder eight journalists at highland community Uchuraccay (Ayacucho). Ayacucho, department intensely victimized by appears in these as racialized wasteland. While scholars produced significant analyses non-literary cultural production Ayacuchan victims Conflict, present essay considers short fiction Ayacuchans Erika Cuadros Livio Huaripaucar, whose stories appear together Siete cuentos sin fin, published Editorial Amartí Considering narratives themselves with Amartí’s promotional materials, Facebook posts, media appearances, I suggest that collection contests dominant (re)presenting post-Conflict Ayacucho its experience against discourses “bestseller” authors like Llosa. Crucially, propose Cuadros, develop important “counterpublics” (Warner 2005) and, doing so, achieve an antihegemonic symbiosis content form.