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A short story – Poetry – Bookshelf – Essays – Hotel of the Broken Hearts – Interviews – Contact- English Edition

LatinosUSA -Clik para leer en español
LatinosUSA Editors: Barbara Leonhard, J. Ré Crivello, Nolcha Fox, Michelle Ayón Navajas, Francisco Bravo, Robbie Cheadle
Masticadores -en español
A Short Story
The Meaning of Many Deaths: An Interview with Eduardo Sacheri on Nosotros dos en la tormenta

by Juan Camilo Rincón

Many embrace idea words like revolution or country and wave them like flags, but like undulating flags, these idea words sometimes get torn up and lose all meaning in the end. The protagonists of Nosotros dos en la tormenta (Alfaguara, 2023), from writer Eduardo Sacheri, are young militants from groups like Montoneros and the People’s Revolutionary Army (ERP in Spanish), as well as their skeptical, frustrated, or misunderstood families, and police and military working for the national cause.

Set in the seventies, in a convulsing Argentina one year before the military coup led by Rafael Videla and others, Sacheri’s new novel, with its measured emotive tone and rich shades of irony, recapitulates this complex period in which the actions of a few guerrilla organizations promised the advent of a new country after the death of Juan Domingo Perón.

“People think death is supposed to be meaningful. But the more bodies that pile up, the less each death means,” says El Cabezón to his friend Alejandro, referring to the modus operandi of the ERP. Nosotros dos en la tormenta is a book about doubt and questioning one’s beliefs, with a look towards a past that could easily have been the present day.

The Meaning of Many Deaths: An Interview with Eduardo Sacheri on Nosotros dos en la tormenta

Juan Camilo Rincón: What was it like to build a storyline with such a complex history as the backdrop?

Eduardo Sacheri: This novel gave me a good amount more work than others, even if every novel is work. In this case, I knew I’d be grappling with a painful period of conflict. The novel is set in 1975 (I was eight years old at the time) and it seemed important to study this period—please note the verb I used, study—to remove it from the realm of my own personal, family memories, which were in many ways the emotional driving force behind this story. I would say that first I did an entire academic study. A lot of work has already been done in Argentina on armed organizations, ideology and organizational structure, as well as the connection between these things and political power and social relations, or lack thereof. In addition to that, I had conversations with ex-guerrillas and their victims or relatives of their victims—it seemed important to bring a human dimension back to those whose lives were so spectacularly affected. Only then did I begin on the plot. I asked myself: What can I tell about this period? What kinds of characters can I construct? At that point I envisioned them as paths that cross. I didn’t want to impose a way of reading, independently of each individual’s ideas. Instead, it was more interesting to create a point of dialogue, or at least to let the story be seen from different perspectives—my perspective being just one of many. I think that was the biggest challenge of this novel. 

J.C.R.: The dictatorship has been portrayed extensively in Argentine cinema, music and literature, but your novel precedes this period. How did you address this period in your novel?

E.S.: The entire novel takes place in 1975. I picked that year because it was extremely turbulent, even if it was before the coup. In Argentina, the military government has been given enormous attention in the cinema and in literature, with good reason, but that’s not the case for the preceding period or the period directly afterwards, even though a ton of things happened, a ton of situations and political actors intertwined in the story. Perón had returned to Argentina in ’73. Two months before that, a general election took place in which he was not allowed to participate, and it was won by Héctor Cámpora, his assistant, his right-hand man, his proxy. Cámpora stepped down almost immediately afterwards, and new elections were called. Perón was elected, with his wife María Estela Martínez de Perón serving as vice president. Several revolutionary organizations were active in that Argentina, especially Montoneros and the People’s Revolutionary Army (ERP), whose base was Trotskyist, Maoist, and Guevarist, a very orthodox left. Although Montoneros had the same objective of social revolution, a socialist paradise, they made the decision to support Perón. This was a conscious decision made voluntarily: if the people are Peronist, we have to be, too. When Perón was in exile, this youthful agitation for his return was beneficial to him, but when he returned, his order was: now you must be disciplined, fall into line, follow orders, you are part of the movement. This was a Perón that was clearly more a creature of the right than the left.

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Reviews / Books recommended by Masticadores

Masticadores —To day —in spanish

Epicentre South Africa

Editor: Robbie Cheadle

Poetry

Editors: Michelle Ayón Navajas, Francisco Bravo Cabrera, J. Re Crivello

Bookshelf (Poetry, Book News, Articles)

Editors: Nolcha Fox & Barbara Leonhard

Little Chews
Editor: Nolcha Fox
Essay
Hotel: «Hotel of the Broken Hearts»

Editor: Michelle Ayón Navajas


«CONVERSATION»  by Ray Whitaker

It is difficult to understand your silence
placed value is in expression
what one says to another is part of the meaning of Life
the opportunities of hearing a loved one’s voice
sincerity is inherit in expression
silence connotates disapproval and perhaps even disdain

pterosauros fly silently
over the primordial earth below

As I ride one
The wind over my back
is quiet, whispering secrets  barely heard.

Sorrow at the loss becomes an influence.

Tears dry quickly in the winds aloft.
Aches fly as swift as the clouds

we yielded close to oblivion
like darkness in the dungeon
for days months and years,
I lost count, gosh!
I barely remember;
the tears I’ve cried,
the pains I’ve agonized,
the aches I’ve endured-
will this year be,
the year we finally say,
“Happy New Year?”

we succumbed to the whims
and caprices of being young
and restless,
tortured our hopes and our dreams
’till there was none to begin,
no more wantings,
no more needings,
no more longing,
yet, in the silence of our stubborn hearts, we dare and say
“this year will be, the beginning of our forever.”

no more doubts,
no more hesitations,
not even a room for “what-ifs”
and “what could-have-beens,”
for we are certain (amidst all the uncertainties today) we claim;
“this is a Happy New Year.”

*first appeared on Spillwords

______

Author’s Bio

All writers and poets are writing out of «the Self» however there are directions that the self speaks into, that change. Now Ray’s writing is to put foremost in his work, just who he is writing for. He intends on writing for the everyday man and woman. He firmly believes that poems need to reach into the everyday person’s pictures in their minds, and engage with those. This is where he aims to make a difference in his creative writing. He’s fulfilled when he sees that his work is provoking thought in his readers. Ray has five books published, and two chapbooks. His work has been published in fourteen different countries.

Reed More: HotelMasticadores (Read blog)

Daily Update from Chewers & MasticadoresUSA
Gobblers / Interviews
MasticadoresCanada Editor: Ray Whitaker (Daily Update)

LatinosUSA

Overview

Masticadores.com and masticadoresdeLetras belong to the NGO Masticadores. We promote culture and communication. We publish in eight languages ​​(Spanish, English, Portuguese, Tagalog, Romanian, Italian, French and Catalan). And we publish in twelve countries (France, Italy, Brazil, USA, Mexico, Argentina, India, Taiwan, France, Turkey, Uruguay, Philippines. On 22 blogs. With 24 editors, and 450 writers.

The idea and founder of Masticadores and MasticadoresdeLetras is: Juan Re Crivello.

Raison d’être

We work to promote culture and communication in an environment of freedom and respect for the ideas of all citizens.

Income

The operating costs of the site are funded by members. The editors involved in selecting works for the cover donate their time for the enjoyment that is generated by promoting the work of other artists, photographers and writers.

How we select collaborative work

The site editors review submissions, primarily from email submissions. See the conditions for submissions on each particular blog.

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Cover Illustrations

The images, art or illustrations we use to accompany some of the features on the site are either original works provided by the author to Masticadores for the purpose of illustrating a feature or are pulled from Unsplash or Flickr, or Pinterest, using the «commercial use allowed» filter. Unless the cover author created the illustration, we also provide attribution. Please contact us if you have any concerns about any of the illustrations.

LatinosUsa (EnglishEdition)

Founder and editor: J. Re Crivello

Contacto:

Email: fleminglabwork@gmail.com

The Hotel by Masticadores

Editor: Michelle Ayón Navajas

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