- Writing
- BBC News World
image source, Alejandra Lopez
Author Belen López Biro wrote two novels about her experience nine years ago denouncing her uncle.
When she was a little girl, Belán López Biro spent her summer vacations with her uncles in the city of Santa Lucia, a former agricultural colony in the north of Buenos Aires province, Argentina, where her mother grew up.
When her parents, divorced, worked in the city, she enjoyed having fun with her relatives and friends.
But behind those seeming visits lay a horrifying truth: From the age of 13, her uncle—a policeman who was her mother’s sister’s husband—started abusing her.
She suffered violations for three years until a family member discovered the situation.
López Biro wrote about those harrowing experiences in his first novel: “Why Do You Come Back Every Summer”Published in 2018.
This week, after a nine-year court battle, her abuser announced she was finally there Sentenced to 10 years imprisonment.
“done”
“Done. This is over. set me free“, the 30-year-old writer described in an opinion piece published on January 3 in the Spanish newspaper El País.
“After nine years and complaints. Reports, psychological tests, trips to police stations, lawyers, national courts. The whole family is split in two. The city hides the abuser. Seven years of writing workshops. Two books published (…) Finally, on December 19, the trial . . Five days later, punishment,” he wrote. .
“Now I say everything well Names I can’t pronounce sometimes: Claudio Sarlo, former commissioner of the province of Buenos Aires, uncle by marriage, the father of a family, sexually abused me when I was a girl,” he described the crime that appears in the sentence:
“Sexual abuse of an offender in the charge of a guardian and a minor under the age of 18 is aggravated.”
image source, Editorial Honeysuckle
López Biro’s first novel describes her experience of abuse in a raw way.
In a statement to BBC Mundo, Lopez Biero said the sentence brought him “first, What a relief no doubt“, although she says that writing the column and “putting all those emotions in one place” gave her more relief than failure.
When I wrote “Why You Come Back Every Summer,” it felt like a deep need, like a devastating waterfall, but I let it flow. In this case, the program cost me every word, as the truth came out One last thing I have to say“, Came to know.
There he stated that he decided to write about the sentence with the intention of “rewriting to turn the page. I go back to where I found the remedy.”
“Change the Abuse”
In an interview with this media in 2018, when his first novel came out, the author said that he experienced three states during his healing process: first, recognizing himself as a victim, then leaving the place of victimization, and finally, finding the power that allowed him to move on from that experience.
He discovered the latter when he walked into a writing workshop where they “showed him he could Turn abuse into a work of art“.
Lopez Bureau doesn’t just write about rape. He also told how much he had suffered due to the number of people during his long journey for redress and justice. I asked her.
Why didn’t he say anything before, why did he come back every summer, why did he do this to his family.
Having said all that, his answer was something that many people would not want to see.
image source, Boss Gunnarsa
The author filed a criminal complaint denouncing the abuse when she was 22 years old.
In 2021 he published his second novel. “Where I don’t stand“It reflects all the difficulties that victims of child sexual abuse face when they decide to file a complaint and initiate the legal process.
The author describes her two novels as “books I would have read if I had only experienced sexual violence and the situation I did.” Not knowing whether to report or not, not knowing what to do And find some repair, but any other person, a father, a mother, a brother, a friend, can go better with people who experience a similar situation”.
“Write something else”
In his opinion piece in El Paz, López Biro says “I don’t know if it’s necessary to write this or not.”
But what did it do?For all those who cannot speak or condemn. For me”.
His last sentence was a declaration: “From now on I will devote myself to writing something else.”
When asked about this future project, he reveals that he is working on his third novel.
“It’s too early to say anything, but I think I can be now A little lighter I’m going to have an opportunity that I didn’t have before, which is to create other worlds, to have enough space for my head, my emotions to sink into other possible universes.
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