Now Peru is Mine: The Life and Times of a Campesino Activist by Manuel Llamojha Mitma and Jaymie Patricia Heilman (review)

Testimoio accounts of twentieth century violence in Latin America have become important sources for scholars. Such accounts have raised difficult questions regarding the role of the interlocutor, self-representation, and "truth-telling," as well as north-south power relations in academia. Despite the inherent dilemmas of such accounts and the controversy surrounding landmark publications such as I, Rigoberta Menchú, Latin Americanists have found renewed value in extended oral histories that allow subjects to represent themselves in a collaborative process with a North American scholar. Daniel James's 2000 publication Doña María's Story: Life History, Memory, and Political Identity provided a framework for overcoming challenges associated with representation and contextualization of a life history. Subsequently, Florencia Mallon presented oral histories alongside local and national archival records of a Mapuche community in her 2005 book, Courage Tastes of Blood: The Mapuche Community of Nicolás Ailío and the Chilean State, 1906–2001. Mallon's methodological innovation was significant, sharing archival sources on the local history with her subjects and inviting community members to collaborate in the writing process.

Historian Jaymie Patricia Heilman has applied these methodological innovations expertly in her presentation of the life history of Manuel Llamojha Mitma (1921–2016), an indigenous rights activist who spent his life fighting for the basic rights of his fellow campesinos. Llamojha's life history is remarkable, as his literacy was a unique skill for an indigenous campesino. His autodidactic literacy gave rise to his political ambitions, but most of his activist work involved drafting legal petitions. As an "organic intellectual," his deftness at legal writing was an invaluable source for indigenous campesinos to gain land rights in rural Ayacucho. His literacy combined with his charismatic personality to propel the activist to leadership positions that transcended the traditional social barriers that constrain most indigenous Peruvians. Llamojha was not the typical twentieth-century revolutionary characterized by "revolutionary masculinity" and his selfless efforts to defend the poor "help us to temper romantic visions of political activism" (2).

As the co-author of his life history, Llamojha emphasizes the difficult work of traveling from one remote highland village to another by foot, with his most powerful tool, his typewriter, strapped to his back. Heilman's line of questioning pushed her co-author to reflect on the support he gained among "the pueblo" while also creating more hardships for his wife and children at home. Llamojha's words appear in bold print throughout the book, and Heilman aptly contextualizes his life accounts within broader socio-political trends, including material from Ayacucho archives, which often validate the first-hand accounts.

Llamojha's life spanned most of the twentieth century, and many of his accounts reflect persistent experiences of anti-Indian racism and repression during the "century of revolution." Since his successes submitting legal petitions directly to the government in Lima to denounce abuses committed by hacendados in his twenties, Llamojha was branded a Communist and faced constant persecution from local and national authorities.

His support among the pueblo propelled him to his election as secretary general of the Confederación Campesina del Per ú (CCP), Peru's largest national campesino organization, in 1962. His travels to Cuba, the Soviet Union and China offer a fascinating perspective on the Sino-Soviet split from a self-fashioned intellectual who refused any singular political philosophy.

Heilman provides crucial insights on the emblematic value of Llamojha's life, culminating with the subject's experiences during Peru's internal conflict from 1980–2000. His youngest son was one of thousands of civilians permanently disappeared by state security forces under Fujimori's ten-year authoritarian rule, and his family was among the 600,000 Peruvians displaced by the violence. Like other indigenous activists, Llamojha was falsely accused of being a member of Shining Path.

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