UMass Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press

New Chronicles from Peru

Book Jacket: The Monkey's Paw by R. Kirk

Robin Kirk

A gifted journalist portrays the people and politics of contemporary Peru

Nowhere in South America have the twin crises of political rebellion and economic collapse taken so high a toll as in Peru. Since 1980, thirty thousand people have died in the war between the Shining Path and government forces. At the same time, a disastrous economic decline has boosted to more than twelve million the number of Peruvians living in extreme poverty.

Drawing on Peru's rich history, journalist Robin Kirk combines interviews and personal narrative to present a vivid portrait of this turbulent country. The book opens with her first trip to Peru in 1983, just as the Shining Path guerrillas plunged the nation into sudden, violent change. Amid the horror and loss of war, she finds moving and often marvelous human stories of people from all walks of life. She ends her narrative with the bittersweet return of peasant refugees to their war-ravaged Andean villages.

Among the people we meet are Victor Córdova, the leader of a village peasant patrol who finds that winning dignity from the authorities comes at the price of losing an infant son, and the enigmatic Alberto Fujimori, who appeared from nowhere to win Peru's presidency in 1990.

In one of the book's most provocative chapters, the author explores why so many Peruvian women felt compelled to join the murderous Shining Path. She portrays them not as terrorist cutouts, but as human beings who have made hard choices about life, politics, and the possibility of change.

"This is a compelling memoir of Peru and a rich and persuasive analysis of the Shining Path movement. Kirk's deeply sympathetic and unsentimental approach to individuals in moments of distress, defeat, confrontation, and discovery give this book broad appeal. A first-rate book."

Philip Bennett, Foreign Editor, Boston Globe
"The Monkey's Paw is outstanding. Kirk is a magnificent writer and is very knowledgeable about Peruvian politics and society. Once I had started, I found the book very hard to put down."

Cynthia McClintock, George Washington University

An independent journalist and writer, Robin Kirk works with Human Rights Watch. She is co-editor of The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics and author of Grabada en Piedra, a book on the women of the Shining Path.

Latin American Studies / Current Affairs
232 pp., 35 illustrations
LC 97-16068
$45.00s cloth, ISBN 1-55849-108-2
$22.95s paper, ISBN 1-55849-109-0
1997
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