Horacio Castellanos Moya–TYRANT MEMORY
Posted in 1-2011 Reviews, El Salvador, Historical, Humor, Satire, Absurdity, Literary, Social and Political Issues on Jul 22nd, 2011
In Tyrant Memory, Horacio Castellanos Moya’s second novel to be translated into English (and published by New Directions), the author once again speaks out courageously about repression, abuses of power, military dictatorship, and cold-blooded executions in Central America, this time setting his novel in El Salvador in 1944. General Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez, a fascist known here as The Warlock, had come to power in a coup led by the military in 1931, and was still holding the country in an iron grip in 1944. Believing that a communist conspiracy was underway in the capital of San Salvador, he used the power of his army to clamp down on individual freedoms and terrorize his citizens into submitting to his gross abuses of human rights. Dona Haydee Aragon, the middle-aged wife of Pericles Aragon, becomes the first person narrator of the events that eventually culminate in a general strike aimed at the general’s removal. At this point, the novel becomes a two-part dialogue, with Dona Haydee writing her casual and chatty diary about what is happening in her life in San Salvador, while two fugitives, her son and nephew, provide commentary on their own activities, often very funny, even farcical, as they try to avoid the military who have them on their death list. Part III takes place in 1973 and brings the fates of the various characters up to date.
