Journalist and writer Teresa Donato presented her recent book 'Desaparecida dos veces' (Disappeared Twice), a work that addresses the real story of Ana María, a woman who fought in the Montoneros organization and survived the terror of clandestinity, kidnapping, and torture during the last Argentine military dictatorship.
Ana María herself told the author: "I feel it as a pardon"; as Donato stated, they have carried for 50 years "the guilt of being alive".
The author highlighted that the book is an opportunity to "break with the built-up narrative" and "to think and look at history with other eyes" after decades where survivors were judged by their peers, even being accused of being "informers".
The work, written in the first person of Ana María, has a structure of a conversation between the protagonist and Donato, who places herself in the role of a reader who questions and asks, seeking the truth behind the "pact of loyalty".
Finally, the journalist confessed that the story "went through her body" and that the process was painful for Ana María, who had to revisit her past, realizing, for example, that she had been raped: "She didn't understand what had happened to her" because "when you are under kidnapping, nothing you do is voluntary".
The author seeks for the book to function as a key piece to rethink the country's history from a less romanticized perspective of militancy.
The work narrates the profound trauma of Ana María, focusing on the daily routine of her life in escape.
Donato explained that the woman, who was "a girl" with the "seed" of the intention to change the world, asked her to write her story after her own son told her that "he didn't have the courage to listen to her story live, face to face".
Donato delved into the "very essence of the everyday life" of Ana María, telling how it was "to hide, to escape with a son, being a widow, and having fear that they would catch you, having fear that they would kill you".
However, despite the pain, Ana María sought to know "who we were" through rereading materials from her time.
The protagonist went into hiding and on the run after the death of her partner in a confrontation, until three years later she was kidnapped and managed to save herself.
'Desaparecida dos veces' (Disappeared Twice).
According to what the Argentine News Agency could learn, the title of the book refers to the judgment of her own comrades who considered her a "traitor" for having survived torture.
The author, in dialogue with Splendid AM 990, harshly questioned this judgment: "I would like to know who with an electric prod on their genitals is capable of keeping silent, of being silent, and of not doing anything".
Donato emphasized that the surviving comrades were considered traitors and that this book is a necessary look to "rethink the weight that the survivors carried".
