The Peruvian anthropologist Lurgio Gavilán, 39, presented his autobiography Memories of an Unknown Soldier in Mexico on Monday: autobiography and anthropology of violence, a story he began to write in 1996 and has been slow to publish in his country for the conflicting sensitivities surrounding the armed conflict that confronted the Army with the Sendero Luminoso terrorist group between 1980 and 2000. The author was born in a peasant community in Ayacucho, department of the southern highlands where Shining Path emerged in 1980. This region concentrates the greater sequelae of violence. Currently, Gavilán holds a PhD in Anthropology from the Universidad Iberoamericana de México, a grant from the Ford Foundation. One of the most prominent Peruvian anthropologists - and who investigated the Shining Path violence - Carlos Iván Degregori, read the initial draft of his book and recommended its publication. When he died in 2011, the Peruvian edition was suspended. In Mexico there has been a great interest in this history, explains the author, who has lived more than half of his life in three key areas of the contemporary history of his country: Sendero Luminoso, the Army and the Catholic Church. As a child, in 1983, he entered Shining Path, following in the footsteps of his older brother; two years later, was the only survivor after a fight with the Army: "I was spared my life because I was a child, squalid, malnourished," he said in a Skype interview with El País. These events occurred during the government of Fernando Belaunde, the deadliest period because of the conflict, according to the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The military took him to a barracks: arrested first, received, later; when he came of age, he did the military service and "re-hired" two years to become a sergeant. Then he fought from the other side: "I used to look for soldiers, then I was looking for the Shining Path." Four years after starting this new path, and having already accepted the habits of friar, he abandoned. "It's a little difficult to tell, I had family problems, I ended up raising my son." In the year 2000 he began to study Anthropology in the University San Cristóbal de Huamanga, in Ayacucho. He then won a competition to become a teacher, and taught there for two years. Gavilán says that his alumni ask him when he will teach classes again, "but they do not know this story." "One of my fears is that they stigmatize me as Sendero Luminoso. My relatives do not know much about this, with my son I said little, but the book has already come out. " One of the precautions that the author has taken has been to change the name of his community and some people, since referring to the actors of the conflict in Peru is delicate, not only because of the difficulties of dialogue on the subject, but also because of the imputation easy to "terrorist" to who is not. During a field work in anthropology. During a field work in anthropology. Peru is experiencing disputes over the historical memory of the Shining Path and State violence between 1980 and 2000, but a remnant of the terrorist group founded by Abimael Guzmán, in association with drug trafficking, continues to cause death in an area of sierra sur. On the other hand, Sendero expresses propaganda and claim the amnesty of Guzman through a group that wanted to register as a political party, the Movement for Amnesty and Fundamental Rights (Movadef). "This book does not defend Sendero Luminoso, does not defend the Army, does not defend the convent, is a little impartial. I do not know how they will interpret it in Peru, but in Mexico it has fallen very well, it causes them curiosity that has survived that type of war, and they ask how it is possible that a Quechua comes to study here, "he adds. Gavilán says that one of the leaders of the Movendef political movement, Alfredo Crespo, gave a lecture at an academic institution in Mexico where he attends a course. "He spoke like a fanatic, he asked for Guzman's release. Many people asked questions. "He had his version:" I told him that once in Aranguay, Shining Path tied a rope around a peasant's neck, dragged her to the square, arrived dead. They say that they fight for the poorest and bind them to death? Neither animals behave like this with their fellow men. " Gavilán made his master's thesis on the ways in which the community of Aranguay (Ayacucho) has tried to recover their physical and mental health after the sequels of the conflict.