The story well told: Tabita Peralta Lugones and the Cuervos de la memoria

Abstract

The story of the Lugones family has been explored in various documentaries and novels. Based on this corpus, Tabita Peralta Lugones –great-granddaughter of the poet, granddaughter of the torturer, and daughter of the disappeared activist Pirí Lugones– has written two works in which she seeks to reclaim that story: Retrato de familia (2009a) and Cuervos de la memoria (2013a). In this article, we analyze the rhetorical methods employed in the latter to respond to the “ravens” who have narrated the Lugones family’s past. These include third-person narration, the inclusion of previously unpublished documents, and a critical analysis of the Lugones family, portrayed in both its light and dark aspects, as suggested by the book’s subtitle. In this way, Cuervos differs from the satirical, parodic or ironic character often found in “literatura de hijos” (Fandiño, 2016) and is shown as an attempt to tell the family story definitively.