The Little School

{{short description|1986 novel by Alicia Partnoy}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2024}}

{{Infobox book |

| name = The Little School

| title_orig =

| translator =

| image = The Little School.jpg

| caption = First edition

| author = Alicia Partnoy

| illustrator =

| cover_artist =

| country = Argentina

| language = English

| series =

| genre = Novel

| publisher = Midnight Editions

| release_date = 1986

| english_release_date =

| media_type =

| pages = 136

| isbn = 1-57344-029-9

| oclc= 40178370

| preceded_by =

| followed_by =

}}

The Little School{{Cite book|title=The Little School: Tales of Disappearance and Survival|last=Partnoy|first=Alicia|publisher=Cleis Press|year=1998|location=San Francisco}}{{Cite journal|last=Bermudez-Gallegos|first=María|date=2 June 1990|title=The Little School por Alicia Partnoy: el testimonio en la Argentina|journal=Revista Iberoamericana|volume=56|issue=151|pages=463–476|doi=10.5195/reviberoamer.1990.4725|issn=2154-4794|doi-access=free}} is a novel written by Alicia Partnoy,{{Cite web|url=https://www.aliciapartnoy.com/|title=Sitio oficial|website=Alicia Partnoy|access-date=2019-10-03}} a woman who was "disappeared" during the Dirty War{{Cite book|title=Retrieving the disappeared text : women, chaos & change in Argentina & Chile after the Dirty Wars|last=Pinet, Carolyn.|oclc=936796229}} period of the history of Argentina.{{Cite journal|last=Michelson|first=Seth|date=2013|title="Cadáveres que transitan a las semillas": State Violence and the Aporia of Alicia Partnoy's Poetry|journal=Revista Hispánica Moderna|volume=66|issue=2|pages=159–181|doi=10.1353/rhm.2013.0019|s2cid=55021779 |issn=1944-6446}} It is an account of a clandestine detention center.{{Cite journal|last=Ghiggia|first=María|date=2012|title=Play in Memories of State Terror in Argentina: The Little School by Alicia Partnoy|journal=Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association|volume=45|issue=2|pages=187–215|doi=10.1353/mml.2012.0027|s2cid=161872517 |issn=2162-6294}} She tells of all the people that she met and saw through a tiny hole in her blindfold.{{Cite journal|last=Detwiler|first=Louise A.|date=2000|title=The Blindfolded (Eye)Witness in Alicia Partnoy's "The Little School"|journal=The Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association|volume=33|issue=3|pages=60–72|doi=10.2307/1315342|issn=0742-5562|jstor=1315342}} The guards made sure prisoners of The Little School did not talk with each other or see each other.{{Cite journal|last=Hintz|first=Suzanne|date=1995|title=Prisons of Silence: The Little School by Alicia Partnoy|journal=Monographic Review/Revista Monográfica|via=MLA International Bibliography}} Prisoners were beaten and tortured for almost any reason and many were killed.{{Cite book|title=The Writer as Witness: Latin American Jewish Women's Testimonio in the Works of Marjorie Agosín, Sonia Guralnik, Alicia Kozameh and Alicia Partnoy|last=Blend, Benay|date=27 January 2008|publisher=Women in Judaism: A Multidisciplinary e-Journal|oclc=930580828}}

Military regimes are not at all unusual in Argentina but those that ruled from 1976 to 1979{{Cite book|title=Reading for bodies: Literature from Argentina's Dirty War (1976–1983).|last=Mohlenhoff, Jennifer Joan.|year=1997 |isbn=9780591225792|oclc=841775026}} were unique in the number of civilians, mostly young people, who were kidnapped, jailed, tortured, and/or murdered because of their political beliefs.{{Cite journal|last=Bermudez-Gallegos|first=María|date=2 June 1990|title=The Little School por Alicia Partnoy: el testimonio en la Argentina|journal=Revista Iberoamericana|volume=56|issue=151|pages=463–476|doi=10.5195/reviberoamer.1990.4725|issn=2154-4794|doi-access=free}} Early in 1977 the author was taken into custody by the army and sent to "the little school," one of many camps where dissidents were "taught" their "lessons".{{Cite journal|last=Adams|first=Anna|date=1988|title=Women's Tales of Torture|journal=MACLAS: Latin American Essays|pages=115–23}} Imprisoned without charges, she spent almost a year blindfolded and bound, cut off from friends and family, including her child,{{Cite journal|last=Smith|first=Kathryn|date=2010–2011|title=Female Voice and Feminist Text: Testimonio as a Form of Resistance in Latin America|journal=FACS: Florida Atlantic Comparative Studies}} until being inexplicably released. Partnoy's glimpses of her life in prison are understandably disjointed and meandering, but they stand as a record of character and fortitude.{{Cite journal|last1=Partnoy|first1=Alicia|last2=Kozameh|first2=Alicia|last3=Davis|first3=David E.|date=November 1997|title=Solidarity and Survival|journal=The Women's Review of Books|volume=15|issue=2|pages=26|doi=10.2307/4022887|issn=0738-1433|jstor=4022887}}

It is the small details{{Cite journal|last=TREACY|first=MARY JANE|date=Fall 1996|title=Double Binds: Latin American Women's Prison Memories|journal=Hypatia|volume=11|issue=4|pages=130–145|doi=10.1111/j.1527-2001.1996.tb01040.x|s2cid=144359618 |issn=0887-5367}} that make these stories so heartbreaking. A child's nursery rhyme{{Cite book|title=Writing prison : women political prisoners and the power of telling|last=Portela, M. Edurne, 1974-|date=2003|publisher=University of North Carolina|oclc=1112940484}} that runs endlessly through the mind of one prisoner while being tortured. A friend's jacket that shields the guard's blows once that friend is removed from the school, possibly killed.{{Cite book|title=Reading for bodies: Literature from Argentina's Dirty War (1976–1983).|last=Mohlenhoff, Jennifer Joan.|year=1997 |isbn=9780591225792|oclc=841775026}} A broken tooth kept in a matchbox that reminds one prisoner she is still "whole." The glimpses of life another prisoner catches through the bottom of the blindfold, where it doesn't quite lay flat against her cheeks. The sheer delight in catching raindrops in the palm of a hand where the window leaks during a storm.{{Cite book|title=The Reconstructed Subject: Women's Testimonials as Voices of Resistance|last=Manzor-Coats|first=Lillian|publisher=Latin American Literature Review|year=1990|location=Pittsburgh}}{{Cite book|title=The limits of culture : testimonial literature and the constraints of human rights discourse|last=Cubilié, Anne.|oclc=187452867}}