“Todas la fotos de casa me miran”: Memory and Intergenerational Trauma in Alejandra Solórzano´s Poetry

Abstract

This article focuses on the poetry of Guatemalan-Costa Rican poet, Alejandra Solórzano (1980). Solórzano, whose family members participated as militants and guerrillas in Guatemala´s internal armed conflict, articulates and mediates on questions of impunity and inherited trauma in her poetry. The fragmented images of the past around her demand she unearth the memories of the war that have been silenced in the post-conflict. She has inherited the internal armed conflict and its subsequent trauma and has tasked herself with fighting against impunity and forgetting in Guatemala. Together with a discussion of memory and intergenerational trauma, I consider how the children of the victims and survivors of war contribute to the struggle for the preservation of memory and toward justice.