Detection, Dictatorship and Democracy: Santiago de Chile in Ramon Diaz Eterovics Heredia Series

This article examines the ways in which Chilean author Ramón Díaz Eterovic uses his Heredia series to cast a critical gaze on contemporary Santiago, looking at the historical events and socio-political forces that have shaped the modern capital. The author is particularly concerned with the legacy of the Pinochet dictatorship and with the lack of progress in achieving justice for victims of human rights violations under successive Concertación governments. Through the subjective consciousness of his detective Díaz Eterovic it also considers the socio-political impact of the neoliberal policies introduced by the military government and continued into the present. Concomitant with this, the article looks at the related issue of contested historical memory and how Díaz Eterovic, by means of the clear ideological stance of his detective, engages in a process of recuperation of the historical memory of the defeated.