Narrare il trauma in terza persona: richiami autobiografici nei romanzi di Luis Sepúlveda

Abstract

Luis Sepúlveda, a Chilean writer and political activist, has always revealed very little about his personal experiences. In his novels, however, there are often autobiographical elements: the quiet pain for fallen comrades recurs, and the stories of the various protagonists frequently overlap with that of the author himself. It is a kind of third-person biography, entrusted to fictional characters, a backstage where truth and plausibility merge between life and fiction. Real life is hidden within the novels, and the protagonists represent aspects of the author’s own experience. Names, dates, events, and anniversaries reconstruct a backdrop that the writer never addresses directly, or only does so through references to external events – such as the arrest of Augusto Pinochet Ugarte in Great Britain in 1998, or the Chilean Supreme Court’s decision to prosecute the dictator in 2005. In his character, w kind of alter ego of the author, Sepúlveda brings to life the everyday reality, the struggles, and the tragedies of a Chilean militant.