Memory and oblivion in Guadalupe Años Sin Cuenta

Abstract

“Guadalupe años sin cuenta”, a dramatic text performed by a theater group from Bogota called La Candelaria,
can be considered as part of a Brechtian aesthetic proposal which recreates the way a peasant
from El Llano remembers Guadalupe Salcedo Unda’s death. However, it does not mean to present a brief
historical fragment reduced to a pamphlet. The theater company brilliantly reconstructs ignored testimonies
about the struggles and frustrations of the peasants in the 1950’s. Based on the interpretation of the
syntagmatic and paradigmatic planes, this paper tries to show how “Guadalupe años sin cuenta” aims to
shape a plural collective memory in order to put an end to biased and homogeneous views of the Colombian
national history.