Silence on the Mountains: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in Guatemala (review)

Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 223 no parece justificado es el desconocimiento por parte de estas intelectuales de las relaciones de poder determinadas por el género sexual, pues sus reflexiones son un tanto superficiales. Una carencia aún más llamativa si tenemos en cuenta que Huertas, Beccaria y Sanz son doctoras en literatura, y no olvidemos que la riqueza y variedad del campo de los estudios de la mujer hace tiempo que llegó a España. Mención aparte merece el ensayo de Almudena Grandes, que dice alejarse tanto de la crÃ-tica tradicional, que sigue siendo machista, como de la crÃ-tica feminista radical. Esta última escuela también representa una amenaza, según Grandes, que cree que no está muy extendida todavÃ-a en España, pero sÃ- conuola departamentos enteros de las universidades más importantes de los Estados Unidos. En su opinión, esta tendencia defenderÃ-a que lo que escriben las mujeres interesa sobre todo a las mujeres y sólo puede ser descifrado e interpretado por mujeres. Grandes parece asÃdesconocer los estudios de la mujer realizados en Estados Unidos, España u otros paÃ-ses. Beatriz Celaya Independent Scholar Silence on the Mountains: Stories of Terror, Betrayal, and Forgetting in GuatemaL· Duke University Press, 2004 By Daniel Wilkinson Guatemala's history from the end of the nineteenth century to the present has been plagued with the intricacies of a power struggle between a wealthy oligarchy and the immense majority of the poor. This struggle is most atrocious during the civil war that tore the country apart during the decades following the 1954 coup d'état, which put a halt to the revolutionary regime of Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. Many accounts have been made about these revolutionary years and more so of the years in which a guerrilla warfare was launched against the oppressive military regimes. Among all these studies surfaces Daniel Wilkinson's investigation , which brilliantly penetrates into the heart of the Guatemalan highlands, painstakingly breaking down, piece by piece, the solid façade of silence that was tenaciously carved by the terror mostly infringed upon the indigenous populations in the area. As a result, he is able to unveil, in great detail, some crucial events that took place during those years of war: the organization and fall-through of armed warfare , the genocides, the U.S. involvement, and what is now left in the aftermath of war. The book is set up as an extremely welldocumented and gradual self-discovery, from the part ofthe author. It is divided in four major parts. In the first one, "A House Burned," Wilkinson introduces the reader to an event that would generate a series of questions to be answered throughout the book, such as: Why was the Endler's casa patronal burned by the guerrilla? Why are Germans holding the ownership of coffee plantations? What role do coffee plantations, owned by Germans or not, play in the social and economic fabric of the country? These questions are all driven by the author's underlying mission to unearth the truth ofthe war years. In the second part "Ashes Fell," Wilkinson traces back in time the origins of Guatemala as a coffee nation and how german capital has played a very important role both in supporting coffee-growing and its distribution worldwide. It is not, therefore, a surprise that by the end of the eighteenth century a third ofthe production of coffee in Guatemala was in german hands. In general, Wilkinson explores how the social, economic and political conditions develop over time to force Indians to be the productive muscle needed for the "prosperity" of the country, which leads to their abuse and exploitation. It is only during the decade of 1944-1954 that an attempt is made to overhaul this social and economic structure, but such an attempt is thwarted by local and U.S. intervention. In part three of Wilkinson's book, entitled "A Future Was Buried," the researcher goes about interviewing people to find out how the government measures ofthe revolutionary 224 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies years were adopted locally by the coffee workers. In the process, the history is...