A Lexicon of Terror: Argentina and the Legacies of Torture, Revised and Updated with a New Epilogue

by Marguerite Feitlowitz

Overview

Tanks roaring over farmlands, pregnant women tortured, 30,000 individuals "disappeared"—these were the horrors of Argentina's Dirty War. A New York Times Notable Book of the Year and Finalist for the L.L. Winship / PEN New England Award in 1998, A Lexicon of Terror is a sensitive and unflinching account of the sadism, paranoia, and deception the military junta unleashed on the Argentine people from 1976 to 1983.

This updated edition features a new epilogue that chronicles major political, legal, and social developments in Argentina since the book's initial publication. It also continues the stories of the individuals involved in the Dirty War, including the torturers, kidnappers and murderers formerly granted immunity under now dissolved amnesty laws. Additionally, Feitlowitz discusses investigations launched in the intervening years that have indicated that the network of torture centers, concentration camps, and other operations responsible for the "desaparecidas" was more widespread than previously thought. A Lexicon of Terror vividly evokes this shocking era and tells of the long-lasting effects it has left on the Argentine culture.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199744695
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	04/01/2011
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Marguerite Feitlowitz is Professor of Literature at Bennington College. Her many awards include two Fulbright Fellowships to Argentina and a Mary Ingram Bunting Fellowship in Nonfiction.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction: The Gentlemen's Coup
1. A Lexicon of Terror
2. Night and Fog
3. "Life Here Is Normal"
4. The Land of Mourneth
5. The House of the Blind
6. "The Scilingo Effect" The Past Is a Predator
Epilogue

What People are Saying About This

Harold Pinter

Lucid, authoritative, and appalling. No ghastly stone is left unturned....Quite heartbreaking.

--Harold Pinter

Editorial Reviews

"A magisterial work on a great subject. This is a book everyone should read."—Susan Sontag

"A major work that deserves to stand among the very best accounts of state terror and those who had the strength and luck to survive it."—Foreign Affairs

"Feitlowitz writes with a fearful grace and subdued eloquence; [this is] a work of a literary art in the analytical literature...but [the book] goes much further—and here is her originality and genius."—Edward Peters, Human Rights Review

"Ms. Feitlowitz does an excellent job of combining moving, personal accounts of the Dirty War with insightful glimpses into the complexity of current events in Argentina."—Dr. Jose Miguel Vivanco, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch/Americas

"The most important book to appear so far on the consequences of the vicious cycle of terror and violence the enveloped Argentina in the 1970s... the wealth of empathy and understanding, the depth of knowledge and the intensity of the scholarship that Feitlowitz brings to this book will enrich everyone who cares about Argentina." - Buenos Aires Herald

From the Publisher

During the past few years, many volumes have been written about the difficult period in Argentina's recent history called the "Dirty War." During that period of military dictatorship between 1976 and 1983, thousands of Argentineans were arrested, imprisoned, and declared missing or desaparecidos ("the disappeared"). Feitlowitz (writing, Harvard Univ.) approaches the subject in a unique and fascinating way by examining how language was used and changed because of what people experienced. The author interviewed hundreds of participants and tells her story through personal descriptions and examining language transformations. Consequently, the book provides an emotional and vivid description of events, uses new approaches, and suggests conclusions not found in other volumes on this period of Argentine history. An important book for college and academic Latin America collections.

--Mark L. Grover, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT

Library Journal

A Lexicon of Terror is a searing account of the Argentine Dirty War which claimed over 30,000 lives between 1976 and 1983. The author, who teaches writing and literary translation at Harvard, spent six years of harrowing research among those who survived unspeakable mental and physical torment in the military dictatorship's torture chambers. She spoke with many parents who had seen their children disappear into the "night and fog" of the Argentine terror.... Feitlowitz also shows how, against the odds, persistent and heroic efforts of many Argentinians eventually forced light on a horrifying secret record....Her remarkable book bears painful witness to a tragedy that must not be forgotten.

--Kenneth Maxwell, The New York Review of Books

Kenneth Maxwell

A well-researched, intimate and perceptive portrait of an Argentina still struggling with the crimes of the "dirty war" that ended nearly 20 years ago.

--Tina Rosenberg, The New York Times Book Review

Tina Rosenberg