Finding Cholitais fictionalized ethnography of the Ayacucho region of Peru covering a thirty-year period from the 1970s to today. It is a story of human tragedy resulting from the region's long history of discrimination, class oppression, and then the rise and fall of the communist organization Shining Path. The story's narrator, American anthropologist Dr. Alice Woodsley, attempts to locate her goddaughter, Cholita, who is known to have joined Shining Path and to have murdered her biological father, who fathered her through rape. Searching for Cholita, Woodsley devotes herself to documenting the stories of the countless Andean peasant women who were raped by soldiers, often going beyond witnessing as she helps the women relieve the pain of their sexual horror.
An exceptional story of survival and redemption in the Andes
Received the honorable mention award for the Victor Turner Prize for Ethnographic Writing from the Society for Humanistic Anthropology, 2009.
"A suspenseful story that deals candidly with the devastating effects of violence on Peruvian society while also revealing the significance of colonial history, indigenous cosmology, rituals, kinship, race relations, and symbolic systems in people's lives.
Finding Cholitawill be a useful tool for discussing these issues in classes."--Rachel Corr, associate professor of anthropology, Florida Atlantic University"An intriguing exploration of the relationship between ethnography and memoir writing that also expands in an experimental manner the many ways in which anthropologists write about the people with whom they work. It will be of great interest to readers interested in the Andes."--Enrique Mayer, author of
The Articulated Peasant: Household Economies in the AndesBillie Jean Isbellis a professor emeritus of anthropology at Cornell University. She is the author ofTo Defend Ourselves: Ecology and Ritual in an Andean Village
![Finding Cholita [Paperback]](/itemImage/2/1/8/1/2_5190781.jpg "Finding Cholita [Paperback]")