The narrative of the perpetrator in Brazil: “Memórias quase póstumas de um ex-torturador” and “Memórias de uma guerra suja”

Abstract

The category “perpetrator narrative” is proposed here based on the parallel with the category “novel of dictator” or “narrative of dictator”. Thus, in the same way that the novel of the dictator thematizes and gives protagonism to the tyrant, like the paradigmatic El otoño del patriarca and the recent La fiesta del chivo, we suggest the perpetrator narrative as the one that thematizes and gives protagonism to the perpetrator, considering the perpetrator as one who commits a reprehensible act, crime or offense. In the case of the narratives analyzed in this study, we consider the perpetrator as any fiscalizing and punitive agent belonging to the armed wing of the exception regimes. Being an extension of the tyrant, the perpetrator is directly responsible for the operation of the repressive machine: sometimes the police officer who investigates and gathers information about opponents of the regime, sometimes the authority responsible for planning and conducting repressive actions, or the torturer who executes the , disappearances and murders. As a way of understanding the functioning of the perpetrator narrative, we present the analysis of the novel Memórias quase póstumas de um ex-torturador (2006), by João Bosco Maia, and the mediaded testimony Memórias de uma guerra suja (2012) by Rogério Medeiros and Marcelo Netto, based on the testimony of former DOPS delegate Cláudio Guerra.