Identity and Testimony in K. - Relato de uma busca, by Bernardo Kucinski

Abstract

The novel K. – Relato de uma busca, by Bernardo Kucinski, published in 2014, begins with letters received by the narrator directed to his sister who disappeared during the dictatorship that ruled Brazil between 1964 and 1985. This episode rescues and highlights a painful memory of loss and irreparable damage. The disappearance, debited by the narrator to the action of police agents linked to the State, assumes, from the beginning, the tragic tone of a crime not redeemed by the action of Justice, while it articulates the present of the narrative to the recent history of Brazil. This communication analyzes the capacity of fiction to rewrite, to some extent, history, in addition, I hope to assess the connection of the writer's biography with the novel's narrator.