El Salvador: Senselessness (Horacio Castellanos Moya, trans. Katherine Silver)
Horacio Castellanos Moya (b. 1957) is a Salvadoran writer and journalist. Although born in Honduras, Moya's family was Salvadoran, and he moved back there at age 4. He attended York University in Toronto. While home from school, he watched a group of unarmed students get killed by the government in cold blood, which led him to leave school and travel, working as journalist. In 1991 he returned home yet again, continuing his journalistic endeavor while also beginning to write fiction. Some of his books have received heavy criticism, and he has received death threats. Since 2002 he has lived in Mexico City.
Background: The Lenca people were the oldest indigenous civilization in El Salvador, followed by the Olmecs. The Maya eventually replaced them, however a supervolcano eruption resulted in many leaving. After a few centuries, the Pipil people came, replacing the Maya. When the Spanish arrived in 1522 they were disappointed that the Pipil had no gold or jewels, and that the civilians had evacuated, leaving only warriors, who vastly outnumbered them. The Pipil defeated the Spanish temporarily, but were later brought under their control by 1525. Rebellion continued for ten years, with some success in holding off Spanish control of certain regions. In 1811, Salvadoran priest José Matías Delgado rand the bells of Iglesia La Merced calling for independence along with other elites, but this was suppressed along with another attempt in 1814. By 1821, Spanish authorities finally agreed and signed the Act of Independence of Central America, creating a single republic. In 1822, this republic joined the First Mexican Empire, but El Salvador resisted. In 1841 this dissolved, and El Salvador was independent until it joined Greater Republic of Central America (which only lasted until 1898). At this point, El Salvador became independent, although there was great political instability until 1913. One presidential dynasty lasted until 1927, but free elections did not produce a leader that was liked. A coup in 1931 deposed the government and eventually General Martínez, a fascist, took power. During his rule, resistance was brutally put down. A revolt of indigenous farmers resulted in the government murdering 30,000 people. The '50s-'70s saw a number of contested elections until a coup in 1979 brought the Revolutionary Government Junta of El Salvador into power. Student protests, guerrilla groups, and other activist groups formed, and eventually death squads were daily killing these protestors. From 1980-1992, the Salvadoran Civil War raged, with many disappeared, and more than 75,000 killed. Scholars, children, and indigenous peoples were all part of the murders. In 1992, the government and five guerrilla groups signed a peace treaty ending the war. Since 1992, free elections and economic reform have helped improve living conditions, although crime has remained a major problem.
Senselessness tells the story of a man hired by the Catholic Church to copyedit an 1,100 page report which documents, in terrible detail, the massacres of indigenous people by the military. The man is taken in very intensely by the writing, the language used in the interviews with survivors, and he becomes obsessed, keeping scraps of sentences, carrying them around with him. The man becomes increasingly paranoid, gets involved with a women who is already with someone else, contracts an STI, as he gets deeper into the text he is editing. Moya's own feeling of anger and loss at the senseless killings that have gone in his own country are readily apparent, even in this fictional text. Through the man's story, one feels the terrible burden of these deaths, the pessimism and cynicism that inevitably follow when one is privy to the horrible details. Although the man's capers are what's on the page, the heart of this story is really the political situation that backgrounds it, and the trauma of being a witness. Firmly recommended.
