The Blindfold's Eyes: My Journey from Torture to Truth (review)

"If you live to tell about this, if you somehow manage to survive, no one will believe you" (39). Is it because of these words, uttered by one of her torturers in a Guatemalan secret prison, that Sister Dianna Ortiz resorted to killing her past, losing any recollection of her previous life? After a day of excruciating torments that followed her blindfolded descent into an underworld of terror, she struggles to reconstruct the memories of her past, and to recover her sanity, while fighting for justice. Her case is emblematic of the risks that await those who opt to "walk with the poor." She is an Ursuline nun who has the certainty that her torturers and rapists were led by a fellow countryman, an American who goes by the name of Alejandro. The author draws strength to fight back from her outrage, and from a sense of duty toward the thousands of Guatemalans victimized by the deadly collaboration of the U.S. forces and the local army. "I am answerable for what my country has done and is doing . . . I have a responsibility to be vigilant and to speak out" (x), Ortiz explains.

The Blindfold's Eyes is a ground breaking book that succeeds in drawing from two seemingly opposite literary traditions: the Latin American testimonio and the North American memoir. At times the author is embarked on an individual quest, and like many memoirists, finds herself abandoned by all she deemed worthy of trust—her parents, her congregation, her God. Portrayed in a deeply reflective way, with vivid imagery, those moments alternate with episodes in which it is solidarity, rather than her own determination and unflinching spirit, that rescues the protagonist from destruction. She finds salvation only by recovering her sense of belonging to a community, be it the Liberation Theology movement, or that of survivors at the Kovler Center for torture victims in Chicago. Although the unveiling of truths seems to be at the center of this work, the real force that propels it is the rebuilding of a discourse of solidarity where all participants, including God, contribute to Sister Dianna's survival. At the end of her journey, she forgives God when she realizes that He "was working a quiet miracle all along, healing (her) through other people" (475).

Although a fixation with the truth value or the literariness of the testimonial text has prevailed in scholarly discussions, I maintain that the main feature of testimonios is the construction of a discourse of solidarity. In that sense, The Blindfold's Eyes fits within the Latin American tradition. Testimonio has been inscribed and sanctioned as a literary mode in Latin America since the 1970's. In an essay published in The Real Thing: Testimonial Discourse and Latin America, John Beverly, an authority in the field, defines it as "a novel or novella-length narrative . . .told in the first person by a narrator who is also the real protagonist or witness of the events he or she recounts" (Georg Gubelberger, ed. [Durham: Duke University Press], 1996). Beverly points out that these texts do not evolve around a hero; rather, the narrator represents a social class or group. The form is inspired by the work of the Christian base communities (comunidades cristianas de base). They seek to empower the marginalized, validating their experiences, and using their stories to raise social consciousness. Testimonio has been further impacted by a closely related movement—Liberation Pedagogy, led by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire. For Freire, literacy is fundamental to liberating the poor from oppression. His approach—which Latin American governments, with their centuries-long reliance on a more compliant church, have found very threatening—is echoed by Sister Ortiz in her correspondence to her spiritual director. The young nun reports about her literacy work with the K'anjobal...