It was 2015 and nobody expected big surprises in
Chile when the novel
La resta
was published
and nothing was the same.
The extraordinary operated on two levels: its author,
Alia Trabucco Zerán
(Santiago, 1983) was unknown.
But also, the story was
unexpected and disturbing
.
The author narrated the legacy of the Chilean dictatorship with self-confidence.
Alia Trabucco Zerán studied law in Chile.
The plot is
crazy
.
Three young people,
heirs of the Pinochet dictatorship
(Felipe, son of the disappeared; Iquela, of the tortured who survived; and Paloma, from an escape) share a delirious crossing of the Andes towards Mendoza to
recover the body
of the exiled Ingrid Aguirre, who wanted to in life to be buried in his homeland.
Mounted in a borrowed hearse, they will also face the shreds of
historical-family memory
r.
The remainder
puzzled.
And while academic studies
began to flourish
that analyzed how the tensors of that crazy story operated, the novel won the
national award
for Best Literary Works, topped the top ten of best first novels in the Spanish newspaper
El País
and climbed onto the list of Booker International Prize finalists in 2019.
letters and sentences
Almost twenty years have passed since that debut and today, when she thinks of La resta, Alia Trabucco Zerán also thinks of
justice
.
"I read with great avidity the literature written in Chile and in Argentina by the generation of 'the children' and I remember wondering about the
enormous difference
in the tone of both. In the case of Chile there was more
solemnity
and a persistent tear, while In Argentina, in addition to that, there was also a
self-confidence
that is evident in works like
Los rubios
, by Albertina Carri, or
Los topos
, by Felix Bruzzone", he explained to Clarín.
A man looks at photographs of victims of the dictatorship, in 2019 in Santiago de Chile, three days before the 46th anniversary of the coup by EFE/Alberto Valdes
For Trabucco Zerán, this difference is not only idiosyncratic and of literary traditions, but also
political
: "The relationship with justice, or with injustice in the Chilean case,
affected the so-called 'children's literature'
, which could not have the self-confidence and irony, humor within pain, which is seen in Argentine authors".
For this reason, due to the possibilities that the Argentinean justice enabled (even in the literary field) and that the Chilean justice could not, is that the author built, she says, that delusional journey of the characters, that rebellion against the wound, that
search
for a place of its own beyond solemnity and heartbreak.
"It was a way, oblique, of course, she – she concludes – to
get out of the pain
".
look too
What Antía wants to say about bullying
look too
Castelao and his eternal painting
look too
They, the indecent women