ABOUT AOS MEUS AMIGOS TO QUERIDOS AMIGOS

THE MEMORY OF TORTURE IN BRAZIL DURING THE MILITARY DICTATORSHIP

Abstract

The novel Aos meus amigos, which was published in 1992, and the TV miniseries Queridos amigos, broadcasted by Globo Network in 2008 were both written by Maria Adelaide Amaral, about a family of friends, in São Paulo, and they make an evaluation of the ideals of the Brazilian youth in the 1970’s.  Taking into consideration that these narratives are a testimony of this generation, through the subjectivity of its characters, it is analyzed the way through which the memory of torture in Brazil, during the period of military regime, is exploited in the novel and in the miniseries. The memory is here understood, as the historian Márcia Pereira dos Santos (2007) points out, as an act that has an intention which goes beyond the perspective of “getting to know the past” and rebuilds it.  It aims to relive it, in its passion, in the ability to let the memories come to light, with all their emotional charge they have, also defining needed actions and reactions to the political exercise, may they be individual or collective, marking identities and fights.