Dr. Mark Cox, professor of Spanish at Presbyterian College, recently published an article from his larger project in which he is analyzing novels and short stories about the guerrilla war in Peru. Cox’s research focuses primarily on Peruvian novels, short stories, films, and culture since 1980. 1980 was the year, he explained, when the Maoist Shining Path guerrillas began a war that would take about 70,000 lives.

Cox’s wife is Peruvian, so he has a personal connection to the Peruvian culture. His wife’s family has a history with the Peruvian army, as her father is a retired Army colonel and founder of the Peruvian Commando school, and an uncle of hers was a police general.

“This summer my family and I are going to Peru,” Cox said. “I’ll be presenting papers at three conferences and probably be involved in book presentations.”

He explained the context of his article revolves around two differing groups of people that live in Peru—one group that lives in the Andes mountains and the other on the coast, especially in Lima. The different geographical locations influence the texts these writers produce.

“The Andean writers are primarily middle-class, intellectuals, often college professors or teachers, speak Spanish and one or more indigenous language, focus on the Andean region in their works, and generally are ignored by the Lima literary establishment,” Cox said. “Those who live in Lima and abroad are usually associated with Mario Vargas Llosa, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature.  These writers are also usually middle-class, speak only Spanish, often live from their writings and being public intellectuals, write principally about Lima and the Western world, and are part of the Lima literary establishment”.

This article and the larger project itself go on to describe in more depth the Lima writers, three of whom won prestigious literary prizes from 2005 to 2008 from Spanish publishing houses. All three of these novels focused on the topic of the guerrilla war, too.

“These three novels are part of a larger literary production by Lima writers who tend to equate the Andes with barbarism and upper-class Lima with civilization,” said Cox.

This semester, Cox has been teaching a class on political violence in Latin American. As a researcher, he has found that this class has provided an outlet to share parts of his research, and of himself and his family, with his students.

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