1

Pacts of Silence or Cognitive Healing? Reconciliation and Its Impediments in Novels La

noche de los alfileres and Abril rojo by Santiago Roncagliolo.

Introduction

Peru entered the twenty-first century facing a difficult challenge of rethinking its national

identity after an internal armed conflict that lasted nearly twenty years (1980-2000). The nature

and course of this struggle, particularly the fact that it was not fought by hostile foreign armies,

but rather by representatives of different parts of society within the same nation, raised significant

and profound problems for the process of reconciliation and analysis of the trauma experienced. It

is not surprising, therefore, that parallel to legal, political and social actions which aim to solve

some of the post-conflict dilemmas, cultural products are created which assume this timeframe

and events as their central theme, with literature being a prolific part of such production. Novels,

short narratives and non-fiction texts dealing with the topic fill the shelves of Peruvian bookshops

in large numbers, with both critical acclaim and commercial success. With such an obvious need

to process and understand the events of the 1980s and 1990s, this study focuses on the literary

depiction of two different attitudes towards the violence experienced during and after the conflict

in Santiago Roncagliolo’s novels La noche de los alfileres (2016) and Abril rojo (2006),

considering, in particular, their nature within two social structures, family and nation.

Santiago Roncagliolo (born in 1975 in Lima) is one of the key authors of his generation in

Peru who gained prominence for his work in various literary genres, including novels, short stories

and plays. He is known for his ability to blend elements of fiction and reality, often exploring

historical and political themes in his writing, and addressing issues such as terrorism and

corruption in the last decades of Peruvian history. In addition to his success as a novelist,

Roncagliolo has worked as a journalist and essayist. His non-fiction texts include the story of
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Sendero Luminoso’s leader Abimael Guzmán entitled La cuarta espada (2007) in which the

author, among other things, through interviews with those imprisoned for terrorism, tries to

uncover the basis of the cult formed around the figure of Chairman Gonzalo. At the same time, a

large part of Roncagliolo’s fictional work focuses on the internal armed conflict as well as its

repercussions in the present day, one of the themes dominating the author’s prose being family

secrets which connect in the narrative a private story with the political context.

The current socio-political situation in Peru is a complex combination of voices from the

past that continue to make themselves heard in today’s reality through the constant mutual

accusations of right and left-wing politicians. The gravity of this tension is best illustrated by Pedro

Castillo’s self-coup attempt in December 2022, followed by months of violent social unrest. Such

circumstances of the post-conflict reality have found a significant place in the country’s literary

production. As noted by Eduardo Chauca, one of the characteristics of the novels created at the

beginning of the twenty-first century, shortly after the final findings of the CVR were made public,

is the inclusion of narratives built around characters that did not experience the brutality of the war

at first hand (Chauca 67). Some of the examples he cites are the protagonists of Alonso Cueto’s

La hora azul and Santiago Roncagliolo’s Abril rojo, who experience violence either indirectly or

only in the aftermath of the conflict. Even if they did not fight on either side, the events of the

1980s and 1990s influenced their upbringing by shaping their views on questions such as the

legitimacy of political violence, racial and social prejudice, gender roles, and their perception of

authority figures. These literary depictions of growing up with the awareness of an armed struggle

shed some light on the possible repercussions of second-hand trauma passed from generation to

generation and the long-term consequences of such trauma on a nation that is still to find an

effective way of healing its wounds.

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One fascinating perspective from which to analyse these questions is through two opposite

concepts. The first one is the pact of silence, an unofficial collective agreement which vows to

essentially ignore or forget a part of history with the supposed goal of moving towards a new future

(Faber 205). The second is cognitive healing based on the ability of the victim of violence to

understand what happened to him or her and in what broader context the trauma occurred, as well

as sharing relatable accounts of lived experiences with others affected (Daly and Sarkin 63). Such

understanding, as suggested by Daly and Sarkin, is especially important where victims “are

children or are chosen randomly or where they are used as pawns by political forces” (46) and are

unable to connect the harm they suffered with any offence committed. In this essay, I will examine

how two of Santiago Roncagliolo’s novels written ten years apart, represent the two contrasting

attitudes towards memory and forgetting that play a part in the forming of the post-conflict

Peruvian national identity. Consequently, I will conduct an analysis of how family secrets, the

intentional and unintentional withdrawal of information, contribute to characters’ opinions and

psychological state. I would like to take into consideration the different roles that family members

play in contributing to developing these private pacts of silence, as it has been proven in the past

that men and women experienced the conflict in different ways due to their distinct roles in society

(Dal Secco 84). In doing so, I aim to identify ways in which the prose of Santiago Roncagliolo

presents both obstacles on the path to reconciliation as well as possible methods of healing the

wounds left after the armed conflict.

La noche de los alfileres (2016)

The novel La noche de los alfileres (2016) takes the form of collective testimony,

sometimes contradictory, of four men who tell the story in front of a camera that happened years

earlier when they were students at a Catholic boys’ school in Lima in the 1990s. Popular culture
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and movies in particular play a crucial role in the boys’ lives as a way to escape the tragic reality

of a country torn apart by internal conflict (Kovacevic 2021). Perhaps that is one of the reasons

why the story itself is hardly believable and reminds the reader of a Hollywood thriller rather than

an account of some teenage miscreants. It becomes even more incredible when the reader learns

that the protagonists, who allegedly broke into the house of one of their teachers, kidnapped her,

attempted a murder, contributed to her death and, finally, disposed of her body, got away with their

crime without any consequences. They seem to lead relatively regular lives with their own families

years after the events mentioned in their confessions. The boys, we are asked to believe, completely

escaped detection and conviction because the attention of the justice system was suddenly

redirected from their case to the tragic terrorist attack that shook Lima in 1992 – the Tarata

bombing. However, the direct impact of terrorism appears to be at the periphery of the story. The

main plot is constructed around an act of personal revenge that the boys plan to take on a teacher

whom they despise. Nevertheless, the more we learn about each boy’s personal situation, the

clearer it becomes that their lives have been deeply affected by secret perturbations within their

families. What seems to be a regular upbringing is, in fact, filled with the constant disconnection

between the children and their parents and peer pressure that resolves itself in an incredible

escalation of violence. As the main example of a pact of silence that gradually gets broken in La

noche de los alfileres, I would like to analyse the story of Manu, the leader of the group.

From the very beginning of the novel, we learn that Manu is being brought up by a single

mother. His father is a soldier but there is little known about his current whereabouts. However,

the topic of parents is a sensitive one for the boy. The father is at the same time his hero, a brave

soldier who showed exceptional courage in the Fake Paquisha War, and an absent figure who does

not participate in his upbringing. As research shows, the figure of the absent father is not an
 5

atypical theme in Peruvian society, but rather a systematic and cultural problem that is not limited

to the period of armed conflict (López and Lozano 10). However, for Manu it becomes a crucial

element of building and breaking the pact of silence, meanwhile, his father’s story starts to be

unveiled by the kidnapped teacher and triggers memories as well as brings disillusion for the boy’s

ideal vision of the parent. Finally, the boy comes to understand that he has fallen victim to a pact

of silence orchestrated by his mother to hide the fact that her husband, due to mental illness after

horrific scenes that he experienced during the war against Sendero Luminoso, lost his mind and

will never come back to his family. The mother decides to protect the son after he is attacked by

his father who hallucinates about ridding the house of senderistas. However, she hides the truth

about the condition of her husband from Manu, as it would require confessing that he killed tens

or even hundreds of partisans, often no older than Manu himself, during the brutal state warfare

against terrorism. Instead, she forges letters and postcards, giving him at least a hint of fatherly

interest. Moreover, Manu himself participates unconsciously in the pact as he seems to have

repressed the memory of his father holding him at gunpoint during one of his PTSD attacks.

The conflict between the government and Sendero Luminoso already serves as a

background to the boy’s life before the father’s departure. However, it is an abstract concept, seen

from a distance, on television, through the filter of media propaganda and as a topic of gossip and

urban legend. Manu does not understand the civil war. The idea of a struggle against terrorists who

are “de acá” seems surprising: “Eso era raro. Hasta entonces, yo pensaba que las guerras siempre

se peleaban contra otros países” (La noche 74). Similarly, he will not understand when his father

attacks his mother after having a mental breakdown or when he himself will be held at gunpoint;

neither will he believe that the war hero would be capable of attacking two poor boys on the streets

of Lima unprovoked. This lack of understanding originates in the lack of information, denial, and
 6

escape into illusions. There is nobody able or willing to help the boy face the reality of the world

in which he lives. As a defence mechanism, Manu chooses to idealise his father and follow in his

footsteps by organising his own military mission – the kidnapping of Señora Pringlin.

Ironically, it is the kidnapped teacher’s story that helps Manu break the pact of silence. She

confesses that the letters he received, allegedly from his father, were in fact fabricated by the

mother. Thanks to this information, Manu can confront his mother and thus discover the whole

truth about his father's actions against child soldiers. Breaking the silence leads to an interesting

change in Manu’s behaviour – he gives up his role as leader of the group and decides that he does

not want to proceed with the murder. To some extent the confrontation helps him to deal with his

own personal trauma and say a symbolic goodbye to the image of the father that appears in the

middle of the room where Manu talks to his mother, in a scene similar to a dream: “Pero mientras

se alejaba por el malecón lentamente, difuminándose en el aire húmedo de la selva, comprendí que

lo estaba viendo por última vez” (La noche 235). As long as Manu does not know the whole truth

about his father’s past and his sudden disappearance, he escapes into violence and crime as the

only known ways of dealing with frustration and helplessness. The disillusion, however painful,

sets him free from the obsession with proving himself in order to gain his father’s approval through

violence and murder which he wrongly identifies with true masculinity.

Silence is also an important part of the story, as the boys seemingly manage to save

themselves and secure a normal future thanks to keeping the memory of the events to themselves.

Their attitude can be summarised by Carlos’s words in the last part of his confession: “lo mejor es

guardar silencio” (La noche 278). The event that lets the boys escape into a pact of silence is yet

another spectacular act of violence that takes away all the attention of the police – the terrorist

attack on Tarata Street. By agreeing to keep the story to themselves, they choose to avoid dealing
 7

with trauma and assume the same standpoint as was previously assumed by their parent(s).

Because the only narrators are the perpetrators themselves, recalling the story now as adults, there

is no external perspective present to voice a moral judgement or counterweight their viewpoint.

They are rather relieved to learn about the Tarata bombing, no matter how horrific it was, because

it leads to their freedom and allows them to keep quiet about their own crime. Some disturbing

conclusions can be drawn from this resolution of the plot.

The reality of a domestic conflict depicted in the novel shows a moral relativism at work

that is inherited from the previous generation and will most probably be passed to the next. As

highlighted, among others, by Wong, the role of the family in creating effective moral agency is

crucial (146). Because the protagonists of the novel end up not being caught or punished for their

crimes, they show little remorse or doubt as they are taught by the environment to normalise or

repress violence. They are shaken by the turn of events, but the ultimate emotion felt by them

collectively is an illusory relief. This also reflects the wider framework of their society where

thousands of acts of human rights violation can be silenced or normalised through the political use

of fear (see Jo-Marie Burt [2006]). In such circumstances, it is not unusual for serious crimes such

as kidnapping and murder to go unpunished when set against the background of overwhelming

violence that takes place in the country, as illustrated by these words of Manu:

¿Te has dado cuenta en qué país vives? La gente se mata todos los días por todas

partes. Enciende la tele, carajo. Bombas, asaltos, violaciones, secuestros. ¿Ves este

arenal? Aquí mismo, donde estamos parados. Este montón de tierra es lo único que

nos separa de que una horda de miserables saque nuestras casas. Y aun así, algún

día lo harán. (La noche 106)

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This reflection not only expresses fear related to omnipresent news of death and terror but also

anxiety that has its roots in social and racial tensions. “Este montón de tierra” (La noche 106)

separates the regular, middle-class life of Lima from new settlements of the poorest inhabitants

who have recently arrived from rural parts of the country. The boys’ families as well as the

information they follow in the media serve as a source of prejudice and fear of the Other. As Victor

Vich notes in relation to various narratives produced about the conflict, “cualquier discurso es una

interpretación de la realidad producida a partir de una determinada posición en la misma” (10) and,

following this thought, the protagonists’ attitude towards the world around them is a direct result

of their position in it and a reflection of the narratives absorbed by them. Being brought up with a

vision of violence waiting just behind the hill contributes to their belief that they are allowed to

solve their own problems in a ruthless way. As mentioned earlier, in Manu’s case the lack of

understanding of his own background that originated in the pact of silence initially intended to

protect him, leads to a contrary effect – the escalation of antisocial behaviour. Similarly, the lack

of understanding of the Other, the people from behind the hill or the Andean population in general,

leads to the strengthening of the structures of discrimination and distrust that get passed down from

generation to generation through urban legends, media propaganda and misrepresentation. The

boys become heirs to their parents’ and society’s prejudices passed down through the anxiety

hidden behind pacts of silence. Fear, danger and terror thus become a part of a normalised,

everyday experience.

The pact of silence is destabilised because the perpetrators are forced to record their

confessions. One of them, Moco, a psychopathic and delusional man obsessed with Hollywood

movies, uses blackmail to record the story for his own pleasure. He threatens the others that he

will reveal their story if they do not confess it in front of a camera. Through the selfish demand of
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Moco to tape the confessions, the readers are reminded that, as long as a pact of silence exists, its

stability is uncertain, so, theoretically, those responsible could be brought to justice. However,

there is no agency present in the novel that would be able to do so. The police abandon the case

and the victim’s daughter does not care about her mother’s fate, especially now as the wife of one

of the attackers. Therefore, there is no answer to the question of how justice can be achieved.

Moreover, it is suggested that it might even be unachievable without the perpetrators themselves

coming forward to reveal their involvement in the crime. However, due to the conditioning by the

politics of silence on both national and intimate levels, they are not likely to ever talk about the

past.

The story thus paints more than just an image of adolescence disturbed by a tragedy

experienced on the individual or family level. The political context that runs through the plot of

the novel raises questions of irreparable damages suffered by society with more than one

generation being affected by the conflict itself, as well as its biased, selective representation in the

media. Additionally, another dimension of this lack of resolution emerges from the fact that the

family in the novel can be interpreted as an allegory of the nation. Thus, the reader is prompted to

wonder how the process of reconciliation is affected when concealment and silence surrounding

crimes, whether privately or politically motivated, are common phenomena. Consequently, the

question of the possibility of even achieving reconciliation without full disclosure of the truth

remains open.

Abril rojo (2006)

The need for silence goes beyond mutual agreements and pacts in the best-known

Roncagliolo’s novel, Abril rojo. The work of fiction was awarded the Alfaguara Prize in 2006, the
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year of publication, and provoked a considerable interest among literary critics. Abril rojo takes

the form of a detective novel, in which the main character, fiscal Félix Chacaltana, is charged with

the mission of solving a series of unusual and violent crimes. The action is set, not coincidentally,

at the turn of the century at a key historical moment during the 2000 Peruvian General Election,

the year of which also marks conventionally the end of the internal armed conflict. The backbone

of the novel’s central conflict are the circumstances of crimes investigated by Chacaltana which

point to the perpetrators’ links with Sendero Luminoso, while the government’s assurances create

a narrative in which the organisation has finally been defeated and poses no threat in the Ayacucho

region. Focusing on this tension, the novel has been analysed from the point of view of its

representations of violence (Coaguila Valdivia 2014), religious and mythological themes (Veres

2008, Ramírez Vásquez 2014) and the question of historical truth (Seong 2013). At the same time,

researchers have approached the text from the perspective of issues related to mental health in a

post-conflict setting (Celis-Castillo 2015, Chauca 2016). Engaging in a dialogue especially with

the theme of these last findings, I will examine the role of family secrets and efforts to discover

the fate of one’s loved ones in the lives of two characters of the novel, the detective Chacaltan and

Nélida, the mother of one of two internal armed conflict’s victims.

What stands out as a key part of the protagonist of Abril rojo Félix Chacaltana’s life are

some details regarding his family situation. Although he repeatedly mentions his dead mother and

their close relationship, her constant presence is accompanied by the complete absence of a father,

as if he had never been part of the policeman’s life. These two factors constitute the seed of the

pact of silence based on the fact that the main character, despite the undeniable love for the mother,

has no memories related to the circumstances of her death nor his father’s role in his early

childhood. On the other hand, he must face a series of crimes that have their origin in the
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nationwide pact of silence meant to cover up the atrocities perpetrated by the military. The novel

once again brings back a personal, family secret and intertwines it in a wider social problem.

Chacaltana’s personal denial is part of an attitude of a whole social class in the eighties and nineties

either ignored the extent of the human rights abuse or simply remained apathetic towards it.

Edward Chauca connects this attitude with a repressed sense of guilt (69). It is especially

interesting that the topic of Sendero Luminoso is brought back to life by Roncagliolo in the year

2000 when, theoretically, according to the official government’s narrative, the problem of

terrorism was already under control after twenty years of struggle and the country was preparing

for a highly controversial general election that later marked its transition to the post-Fujimori era.

The novel, on the other side, takes up a polemic with this narrative, exposing the alleged

tranquillity in the Ayacucho area as a product of misinformation spread by poorly informed (or

deliberately turning a blind eye) journalists and media propaganda. What Chacaltana considers to

be “un rebote terrorista” is dismissed by the military as “algunos payasos que revientan fuegos

artificiales” (Abril rojo 113). This dismissal is additionally supported by the presence of a pro-

Fujimori campaign conducted by the military. The pact of silence is well illustrated by the

exchange between Chacaltana, a bystander, and comanadante Carrión who represents the military.

Carrión claims that Lima does not have any interest in solving problems in the Andes. At the same

time, when asked why he would not ask for support from the capital, he refuses, as he does not

consider it to be necessary. As Kimberly Theidon notes, this silence is further reinforced by

communal authorities who, because they represent “militarized masculinity”, refuse to admit that

certain types of abuse (among others, rape) took place in their region as it would be a testament to

admitting that they were unable to protect their communities (Theidon 108). Nevertheless, despite

living with his own pact of silence, it is Chacaltana who persistently, even against his own will,
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directed by some tragic obsession or instinct, insists on getting to the bottom of the spiral of

violence.

From the beginning, the protagonist appears to be rather a naïve character who believes in

the good will and selflessness of the representatives of the government. Although he sees how this

belief completely collapses in the face of the attitudes of the police and the military that he observes

in Ayacucho, he chooses to stick to his own views. He even manages to come up with his own

logic to help him temporarily maintain his sanity despite the atrocities that he observes: “El fiscal

tenía que creer en alguien. Si todo es mentira, pensaba, nada lo es” (Abril rojo 202). However,

unlike the protagonists of La noche de los alfileres, Chacaltana is not able to use this conviction to

protect himself and secure a relatively peaceful future. Although he takes steps to confront the

trauma, he ends up as an example of the impossibility of healing that leads to a mental illness. At

some point the fiscal starts to believe in his almost messianic part in the events. He sees his role in

the story as a sacrifice, especially when for a moment, during Holy Week celebrations, he feels a

visible connection with the Señor del Huerto – an image of Christ praying in the garden of

Gethsemane (Abril rojo 221). Similarly, when confronted with the image of the mass grave,

Chacaltana imagines the fragmented and burned bodies as a reflection of himself. The scene is

constructed and narrated in such a way that the reader, along with the protagonist, is led to believe

that there is a tragic fate waiting for the fiscal at the bottom of the uncovered pit. It appears to be

a prophecy of the sacrifice that Chacaltana will make after getting to the bottom of his personal

story which, coincidently, can be written into the larger framework of the sociopolitical reality of

Ayacucho at the beginning of the twenty-first century. And the reason for that is, on the one hand,

his own repressed trauma but, on the other, the commitment of comandante Carrión not to allow

the pact of silence to break.

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Meanwhile, one character of the novel Abril rojo seems to be a counterweight to the attitude

of denial, repression and silence represented by everyone else. This contrasting approach is

personalised by Nélida, the mother of two men, Justino and Edwin Mayta Carazo, who within ten

years between 1990 and 2000 lost their lives, either as a direct consequence of the internal conflict

or in the aftermath of it that led comandante Carrión to remove inconvenient witnesses. The family

comes from a rural region close to Ayacucho and during the war was among those affected by

brutality from both sides of the conflict in the most appalling way. It is not clear if her son, Edwin,

was really associated with the terrorists. When asked by Chacaltana if Edwin is indeed guilty,

Carrión answers with ambiguous words: “No lo sé, Chacaltana. Creo que ni siquiera él lo sabía”

(Abril rojo 183). The borders between guilt and innocence are blurred for people who directly

experience the conflict, as much as the roles of victims and offenders are blurred for the characters

in La noche de los alfileres. This is especially visible during Chacaltana’s visit to the prison, where

he witnesses a hateful exchange of accusations between those convicted of terrorism and the

military men guarding them.

However, the actions of Edwin’s mother are not an attempt at solving this confusion or at

differentiating between friends and enemies. She is motivated by her own trauma and love for her

sons to simply learn the truth about their fate in order to mourn in peace. Through that

unconditional love, her behaviour becomes a political statement that represents all the mothers

looking for their disappeared children. Similar movements of mothers gained worldwide

recognition, including the efforts of ‘Mamá’ Angélica Mendoza in Ayacucho region who with

other women unceasingly looked for their loved ones starting in the early 1980s, and have been

documented extensively by researchers (Barrios Suarez 3, Gamarra 10). Although the actions of

groups such as the National Association of Families of the Kidnapped, Detained and Disappeared
 14

of Peru (ANFASEP) often employ multiple strategies in their activism, their focus remains on

justice for the victims and getting to the bottom of the stories of their disappearances (Barrios

Suarez 5). In the same sense, Nélida’s behaviour is driven by her maternal feelings rather than

political objectives and focuses on understanding the tragedy of her own family. Nevertheless, as

described by Celis Castillo, as a result, her actions become a political performance: “She resists

the idea of leaving things as they are. This resistance is embodied in the screaming and crying that

she performs at the burial site she visits, that is, in her political performances” (325). Thus,

regardless of how private and subjective her story and actions are, they can still be extrapolated as

a positive example of confronting the politics of fear and silence.

As Daly and Sarkin point out, in Latin America “not knowing the fate of your loved ones

is the principal source of torture” (46). But Nélida does not agree to simply give up on her mission

to discover the truth about her son’s death. Unlike Carrión, quoted earlier, she also does not agree

to any level of vagueness or ambiguity in relation to her son’s fate. Instead, she continues the

search, even if she is threatened by soldiers with guns and physically removed from the site of a

mass grave. Moreover, we learn that Nélida herself experienced military brutality during the

conflict (“dos efectivos […] procedieron a su encañonamiento contra una pared exterior del

inmueble bajo la consigna de que no gritase ni llamase la atención de los vecinos”, Abril rojo 133)

and fear-motivated lack of support of her neighbours who denied family’s version of the events

(“ninguno de los vecinos de la calle Sucre ha ratificado la versión de la familia”, 134). This does

not stop her from facing waves of opposition from the representatives of the government, one after

another. As Chacaltana finds out in the police archive, her formal complaints are dismissed.

However, instead of relying on the justice system, Señora de Mayta acts on her own to the limits

of her personal capability to find the remains of her son.

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By learning about the fate of the victim’s loved ones, the process of cognitive healing can

begin. It cannot happen, though, if the person who experiences the trauma of having a

desaparecido in their family is still refused the right to information, even after the conflict is over

(Daly and Sarkin 46). The problem of the systemic lack of access to information about the victims

even after two decades of relative peace in Peru is discussed, among others, in the documentary

film La búsqueda (2018) by Mariano Agudo and Daniel Lagares. It is also a recurring motif in the

so-called literatura de los hijos authored by the generation of children orphaned as a result of

extrajudicial actions of the state during the internal conflict (Agüero 2015, Salgado 2022). Based

on their own experiences, efforts to find out the fate of their loved ones often hit a wall of

disinformation and bureaucratic farce, making the deaths of their relatives as if they were “un

secreto transparente y vulgar” (Agüero loc. 567). That is what happens to Nélida Carazo when,

through both formal and informal channels, she is refused access to information about her son.

However, she does not agree with the decisions made without her participation or influence and,

instead, hopes for a positive turn of events by protesting consistently. Therefore, even if at the time

she cannot heal her wounds, she keeps the possibility of cognitive healing open by refusing to be

silenced. The particular role that she has in society, the role of a mother, helps her in a way to stand

up to the armed soldiers. Although they would still use violence to take the women away from

mass graves, they would never kill one: “No lo harían ni con una orden superior. Es más fuerte

que ellos. Es una ley natural. No pueden” (Abril rojo 167). Of course, this statement would not be

correct in the context of the internal armed conflict as it is well known that women, including

mothers, were also victims of murders committed by both sides, the military and Sendero

Luminoso. However, in this case, Roncagliolo introduces an element of post-conflict hope: being

a mother grants Nélida a certain degree of immunity. It does not protect her fully, but the “natural
 16

law” that stops military men from killing her, gives her an advantage in her efforts to uncover the

truth. And, apart from that, we learn that there are more mothers like her who loudly express their

pain in front of mass graves.

It can be argued that, despite his initial denial, Chacaltana also reflects a kind of cognitive

healing, at least for some time before he gives up his trust in state institutions. Although he does

not want to be involved in solving the murder case, he does not stop seeking the truth. However,

unlike Señora Carazo de Mayta, Chacaltana does not realise what he is searching for. To be able

to heal through knowledge, one needs to answer these most basic questions in the first place.

However, because Chacaltana suffers from a lack of memory about his own past, he is not able to

voice questions that could be answered to start the healing process. Still, this counterexample can

be an important argument for making room for various memories as one of the important steps of

reconciliation1 (Uccelli et al 22). Therefore, it can be summarised that the two characters represent

both the power of unstoppable efforts to find the truth as well as potential dangers associated with

this process. As such, the novel transfers the barely perceptible light of hope for reconciliation

through cognitive healing or, in other words, making every possible effort at breaking multiple

pacts of silence, while remaining yet another representation of the significant difficulties on the

way to achieve it.

Conclusion

For many, the immediate association with the word “family” is a positive one, as in

1
The question of how this memory should be gathered and cultivated is also a complex topic that goes
beyond the scope of this essay but has been analysed in detail with reference to various case studies in
Cynthia E. Milton’s article “At the Edge of the Peruvian Truth Commission: Alternative Paths to
Recounting the Past” (2007) or “Histories of Innocence: Post-War Stories in Peru” (2010) by Kimberly
Theidon.
 17

many societies this concept is seen through the idea of a unit that functions together to provide

nurture and care and looks after those more vulnerable like children, elderly or sick relatives.

However, this image can be drastically different when affected by factors as extreme as domestic

violence, armed conflict, lack of emotional security and abandonment. The two novels that I have

analysed, can be read as a fictional depiction of the consequences of such situations, especially

from the perspective of characters who experience similar trauma during childhood and

adolescence. Moreover, they point to various intimate, private repercussions of an internal armed

conflict that differ depending on the age, gender or social class of the person affected. Therefore,

the reader is prompted to wonder whether one, universal way to achieving reconciliation exists,

that could satisfy such a variety of needs of people who lived through a civil war.

Although both novels seemingly focus on the personal stories of the characters and their

families, it is impossible to ignore the importance of the wider socio-political context which is

intertwined in their everyday lives. Often the events that are unveiled as the story unfolds provide

insight into the condition of the whole nation, especially its fears and anxieties, as well as its

inability to heal the wounds in a post-conflict situation. Consequently, the family becomes an

allegory for the nation that faces the choice of either denying the past to avoid the need for facing

the difficult question of how and what kind of memories should be preserved, or to constantly fight

for the memory. Thus, La noche de los alfileres and Abril rojo focus on negative examples of how

the first attitude, characterised by the development of pacts of silence, leads to the repetition of the

same destructive behaviours and acts of violence from generation to generation. This phenomenon

is visible in the actions of the protagonists who, desensitised by the omnipresent violence and

motivated by distrust towards society in a general sense, choose brutal action as their own way of
 18

dealing with problems. Violence is gradually normalised to the point when, in the case of Manu

and Chacaltana, it is inseparably linked to masculinity and essential for reaching adulthood.

The final pages of both novels do not suggest any easy ways of achieving justice or

reconciliation as, either through a personal pact of silence or an official decision of the military

intelligence, the circumstances of the crimes committed in both cases become concealed. This does

not mean, however, that nobody is left who would be capable of making the effort to preserve the

memory of these events. As long as characters selflessly and consistently try to reveal the truth,

there is a hope that the mourning process can be fulfilled, at least to some extent. This type of

character is represented in Abril rojo by Nélida and other mothers who regularly appear at the sites

of mass graves and look for the bodies of their children. Through this act, they refuse to conform

to the national pact of silence that separates them from the knowledge about their children’s fates

and impedes the process of cognitive healing. At the same time, there is always a risk associated

with the search for the truth. In the case of Nélida, it manifests itself in the form of threats and

physical violence that she experiences at the mass grave from soldiers, Chacaltana, on the other

hand, succumbs to mental illness while he tries to uncover the truth about his personal past as well

as the events of the internal conflict.

Gender (mothers/fathers) and generational (parents/children) factors are not insignificant

in terms of both the efforts to access information and the effectiveness of such efforts and the

seriousness of the consequences for breaching the boundaries of the pacts. These are clearly

present in both novels as determinants of attitudes towards post-conflict silences. As a

consequence, also the family is a key factor for determining the behaviour of the protagonists of

both novels, either by passing down prejudices, anxieties and fears or, just as importantly, through

absence and abandonment. In accordance with the work of the Comisión de la Verdad y
 19

Reconciliación, the reader is shown that access to information about desaparecidos and exposing

the whole truth about human rights violations and war crimes committed on both sides of the

conflict are essential to achieving reconciliation. Moreover, Roncagliolo’s work highlights the

significance of including private testimonies and confession as a part of the way to achieve

nationwide healing. That leads to the conclusion that there is more to reconciliation than just a

legal or political action. It is essential that various groups be able to explore different methods of

healing to break the vicious circle of silence and misinformation.

 20

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