Review

Reviewed Work(s): When Rains Became Floods: A Child Soldier's Story by Lurgio Gavilán
Sánchez
Review by: ALEXANDRA HIBBETT
Source: Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 48, No. 4 (November 2016), pp. 897-899
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26168338
Accessed: 29-03-2023 21:03 UTC

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 Book Reviews 897

acknowledge abuses under Stroessner's dictatorship and the recovery of the memory of
the country's authoritarian past and, on the other, the current criminalisation of
protest and social movements together with the enduring remnants of authoritarian
ism and the culture of impunity in contemporary Paraguay.
Third, the chapters demonstrate, although with varying degrees of success across the
region, that a culture of human rights emerged and consolidated in Latin America in
such a forceful way that few would have predicted just decades ago. On the one
end of an imaginary spectrum of human rights culture, we find countries such as
Argentina, Chile and Uruguay where the dictatorial past and the forceful denunci
ation of atrocities triggered the development of a profound human rights conscious
ness. Chapter 2 on Uruguay, for instance, underscores significant events such as the
prosecution and conviction of two former dictators and other high-ranking civilian
and military officers for dictatorship-era crimes after 2005. At the other end of the
spectrum, human rights problems endure in countries like Brazil, Guatemala and El
Salvador. For instance, at least 3,009 people were killed by the police in Brazil in
2014, according to the latest Brazilian Public Security Forum report (see http://
www.forumseguranca.org.br/storage/download//anuario_2015 .retificado_.pdf), the
actual number is likely to be higher since some killings go unreported. In chapter 6,
Cynthia Milton identifies human rights challenges for Peru. She shows how, although
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission considered that holding perpetrators to
account 'was a central act of reparation' and 'crucial for restoring the population's
trust in democratic institutions' (p. 122), there have recently been substantial setbacks
in the search for justice for past crimes and that social inequalities and racism — key
causes of Peru's conflict in the recent past — remain largely unchanged.
The volume editors have put together an excellent collection of essays that will
become a go-to volume for undergraduate and postgraduate courses on Latin
American Studies, Memory Studies, and Human Rights, as well as for researchers
looking for an overview of the struggles for memory in Latin America.

Latin American Centre, University of Oxford FRANCESCA LESSA

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 48 (zoió). doi:io.ioi7/Soozi2i6Xi6ooi747

Lurgio Gavilán Sánchez, When Rains Became Floods: A Child Soldi
(Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 2015), pp
£54.00, £13.99 pb.
When Rains Became Floods is the translation of Memorias de un soldado d
autobiografía y antropología de la violencia (Lima and Mexico City:
Estudios Peruanos and Universidad Iberoamericana, 1012), an autobi
former child soldier of the Shining Path who, when still a child, was in
the Peruvian military, and then later became a Franciscan priest, and
candidate in Anthropology at the Ibero-American University in
Spanish original instantly received much acclaim in Peru, in academi
beyond, because despite there being many testimonies by perpetrators,
ernment archive, none had been publicly circulated: Gavilán's was the fir
kind to be published. It is now commonly paired with José Carlos Agi
essay, Los rendidos: sobre el don de perdonar (Lima: Instituto de Estud
2015).

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898 Book Reviews

In a country where the experience of political violence between 1980 and 2000 is
still a contentious issue, often hung between polarised and simplified view points,
the book's novelty is to offer a detailed and personal view of the conflict that does
not allow for stereotype or generalisation about either the Shining Path or the
Peruvian military. It also offers insights into topics shrouded, in the public imagin
ation, with an air of mystery, such as how ordinary people could have been willing
to perpetrate violence and risk their own lives for the Shining Path's cause. Gavilán
joined the organisation as an illiterate, Quechua-speaking, monolingual 12 year-old
from rural Ayacucho (where the violence originated and was most intense) in 1983.
He did so out of a combination of enthusiasm for what seemed then to be an immi
nent future of social justice, to be brought about by an organisation whose wanton
violence had yet to become evident to all; and admiration for his elder brother,
who had joined the organisation before him, leaving behind a life of few opportunities
for change or self-realisation. Gavilán was with the organisation for over two years; he
narrates the overwhelming violence he witnessed and participated in, as well as experi
ences of extreme hunger and precariousness. He was captured by the military and
could have been killed, as so many Shining Path prisoners were, but his life was
spared. He was given lodging at the military base and provided with a school educa
tion. He remained with the army, witnessing many terrible crimes perpetrated at
their base, until 1995, when he joined the Franciscans.
During his time with the order, he began to write his story. He continued to add
to it as the years passed, and turned his manuscript into its published form as a doc
toral student, with the collaboration of his supervisor, Yerko Castro. Divided into
four chapters, one for each phase of his life, it is written in a plain style tinged
with a romantic pantheism which evokes an Andean appreciation of an intimate re
lationship between nature and the human. Only at the worst moments of his experi
ence does this connection of human and nature seem to fail: 'Sometimes hills do not
speak, they are so far removed from us, like insensitive humans or our compassionless
leaders' (p. 36). The text keeps to the narration of events and depictions of sur
roundings, restraining from self-reflection except in the first few paragraphs and
the final chapter, where the author and the person narrated come together in the
present.
The overall thrust of the text is towards a liberal humanism; after spending most of
his life in institutions that organise individuals' lives around a collective cause, Gavilán
wants to 'live in the world like any ordinary person' (p. 85). The text does not,
however, fall into the standardised accusations against Shining Path or the state.
His gratitude towards the military is evident. On the other hand, he continues to
uphold the desire that led him and others to take on the Shining Path's ideology, a
desire that reappears in his decision to leave the army for the Church, namely, a
desire to participate in the creation of a better world.
The original is written in Andean-Spanish (which carries traces of Quechua syntax),
combined at times with learned references and even Latin; moreover, the temporality
of the narration is complex, as Gavilán frequently uses the discourse he upheld at the
time of his life that he is narrating. It is, therefore, a challenging text to translate. My
impression is that this translation has prioritised ease and accessibility, and the text
flows well as a result. However, by moments, this translation is literal where it
perhaps need not be, and by others, when Gavilán has narrated something in a
complex and intriguing way, the translation is to Standard English. Thus, at times,
the rich suggestiveness of the Andean-Spanish Gavilán uses is lost.

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 Book Reviews 899

This edition includes the original Foreword by the late Peruvian anthropologist
Carlos Iván Degregori, which gives some insight into what such a text means for its
Peruvian readership. The original introductory essay by Yerko Castro has been
replaced by an Introduction by Orin Starn, which explains the history of the
Shining Path insurgency in Peru for an international readership unfamiliar with it,
and overviews the narrative's highlights. Its footnotes provide useful bibliographical
orientation to readers who would like to expand their understanding of the context.
This edition also adds a helpful index, and includes the photographs present in the
original edition, plus a few extra, in a larger format, allowing more details to be seen.
All in all, the book is of great relevance for those interested in political violence and
cultural memory in Peru, and the experience of child soldiers and young militants any
where. It is accessible to those who do not have previous knowledge of the context,
such as students, and indeed could be recommended as a first read for those who
would like to learn about it, in conjunction with texts such as the Truth and
Reconciliation Commission's Final Report (Lima: CVR, 2003). Perhaps, also, its avail
ability in English could serve to promote its study in comparison to similar texts from
other places. If, however, readers are interested in interpreting hoiv it represents at the
level of language or style rather than solely what is being represented, then they would
be best advised to refer to the Spanish original.

Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú ALEXANDRA HIBBETT

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 48 (xoi6). doirio.ioiy/Sooizz 16X16001759

Edward King, Virtual Orientalism in Brazilian Culture (Lond

Palgrave Macmillan, 1015), pp. x+ 214, £60.00, hb.

King argues that orientalist discourses in some contemporary B

duction engaging with Japanese postmodern culture may be a refl
anxiety about the reconfiguration of space and time in the d
Orientalism addresses the displacement to the 'periphery' of
context of an increasingly globalised, fluid information age.
The introduction discusses a type of virtual orientalism, during
tions of the centenary of the inception of Japanese immigration to
conflates the perceived stable identities of Japanese immigrants
modern, unchanging and sedentary tradition, and a more flexibl
national identity to which Brazil should aspire. This identity
after a hypermodern Japan identified with global mobility, p
youth culture, manga and anime, which is supposed to serve as
As King explains, 'The very concept of producing these narrat
in the style of manga presupposes this connection between t
Japanese diaspora and the globalisation of Japanese pop cultur
how this cultural production fluctuates between a nineteenth-cen
and the potentialities of virtual time and space of the digital age
evolution of the notion of modernity in Brazil.
Chapter 1 studies this attempt to adapt the history of Japan
changing notions of Brazilian national identity that are more a
times of pop cosmopolitanism, thus fabricating a type of flexible
identity for the multicultural, digital age. King questions this ar
study of comic-book techniques in two manga comics, 0 vento

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