Spectra of damage. Marks of horror in three novels about the Argentine Chaco

Abstract

The Gran Chaco region, lately colonised, was the scene of major genocides perpetrated by three states: Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay; only in the area under Argentinean jurisdiction, the massacres of Fortín Yunká (1919), Napalpí (1924), El Zapallar (1933) and Rincón Bomba (1947) took place. The republicanperiod was characterised by an initial scientific-military siegethat gave way, after the constitution of the Argentine state, tothe razing of cultures and ecosystems. Many lands were handedover to European settlers -completely disaffected from the space they came to occupy- and many others remained in the hands oflarge landowners. The ingenios and obrajes (sugar mills) were the sinkhole that finally buried the diverse ways of life in Chaco.  This paper will address the various marks of horror in Chaco, which emerge in a spectral and displaced manner in three novels of recentyears: Bajo este sol tremendo (2009) by Carlos Busqued, Unacasa junto al tragadero (2017) by Mariano Quirós and La estirpe (2021) by Carla Maliandi. Their common denominator of violent and silenced death is present in different ways: dreams, apparitions,psychic pathologies, the contained hatred that implodes, the sordidness left by the massacre once the fire ceases. Whether in the territory or at a distance, there is an eloquent remnant that proves that it is not possible to forget the damage.