The absurdities of dictatorship in Di Benedetto

Abstract

The article analyzes two short stories by the Argentine writer Antonio de Benedetto (1922-1987), "Vizcachas" and "Aballay", belonging to the collection Absurdos [1978], written during his imprisonment during the Argentine dictatorship (1976-1984). Starting from the question of what literature adds to the facts, we approach its analysis under the hypothesis of whether it is possible to characterize this collection of stories as typologically similar to that of the Shoah, in which its authors attend perplexed to the cancellation of common sense and logic to take its place, an obsessive idea that questions the principles of enlightened states.