The Chilean Dictatorship Novel

This book discusses the representation of women's memories of the dictatorship in the recent work of seven Chilean novelists.

Though the civil-rights abuses by the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile (1973-1990) were later recognized by reparations and truth commissions, the difficult emotions suffered by the victims and their families were often pushed into the background or out of the national conversation entirely. In response, novelists began writing memory of feelings experienced during the dictatorship into their books. In The Chilean Dictatorship Novel, Weldt-Basson examines fifteen novels and one testimony written on the topic of dictatorship to illustrate how these Chilean narratives center on affect and emotions. Each chapter focuses on a different emotion: feelings of loss because of father abandonment and spatial injustice caused by the neoliberal urbanization of Santiago; despair articulated through tragic romances and affective landscapes; left-wing nostalgia and melancholia communicated through allegory; feelings of abjection caused by torture and betrayal; and the creation of affect through violent events, aggressive child play, and sexual torture. Through a close look at the work of José Donoso, Ariel Dorfman, Diamela Eltit, Carlos Franz, and Nona Fernández, among others, Weldt-Basson effectively argues that by inspiring emotion and creating empathy within readers, the authors of these books instill a drive in the readers for ongoing social-justice advocacy, thereby transforming the process of reading into a platform for future action. Weldt-Basson's landmark study will serve as a basis for the future study of Latin American literature for decades to come.

A former Chilean columnist offers a dramatic first-person chronicle of life under dictatorship as she records her own personal experiences and those of others whose lives were dramatically affected by Chile's Pinochet government. Reprint.

Revised and updated: the definitive primary-source history of US involvement in General Pinochet’s Chilean coup—“the evidence is overwhelming” (The New Yorker). Published to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of General Augusto Pinochet’s infamous September 11, 1973, military coup in Chile, this updated edition of The Pinochet File reveals the shocking, formerly secret record of the US government’s complicity with atrocity in a foreign country. The book now completes the file on Pinochet’s story, detailing his multiple indictments between 2004 and his death on December 10, 2006, including the Riggs Bank scandal that revealed how the dictator had illegally squirreled away over $26 million in ill-begotten wealth in secret American bank accounts. When it was first released in hardcover, The Pinochet File contributed to the international campaign to hold Pinochet accountable for murder, torture, and terrorism. A new afterword tells the extraordinary story of Henry Kissinger’s attempt to undercut the book’s reception—efforts that generated a major scandal that led to a high-level resignation at the Council on Foreign Relations, illustrating the continued ability of the book to speak truth to power. “The Pinochet File should be considered the long awaited book of record on U.S. intervention in Chile . . . A crisp compelling narrative, almost a political thriller.” —Los Angeles Times

An account of the polarization of Chilean society under Augusto Pinochet and of Chile's return to democratic government.

Curfew takes place during one twenty-four hour period in January 1985. Matilde Neruda, widow of the Nobel Prize-winning poet, has just passed away, and various factions are rallying to turn the event to their advantage: for Pinochet's junta, it represents a chance to assert political authority, while for the intellectuals who had basked in the Nerudas' light, it is an opportunity to grab the spoils of the estate. Against this backdrop of complex, often conflicting motivations, Donoso weaves a portrait of a society struggling to fashion a daily existence for itself, and of an intelligentsia vainly attempting to salvage the remnants of glory days long gone by. But Curfew is also a story of the tragic love between Judit Torre, an upper-middle-class radical who wants to escape her bitter past; and Mañntilde;ungo Vera, a native son returning after a successful career as a European pop singer. In the zone between documentary-like realism and grotesque absurdity, Joséeacute; Donoso evokes the suffocating atmosphere of a country under dictatorship, and its quietly devastating effect on the actions of those who live there.

The Post-Dictatorship Generation in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay explores how young adults in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay make sense of the 1970s socialist projects and the ensuing years of repression in their activism, film, and literature.

"An accurate and objective account of the political events in Chile. . . . An important document for those who want to know what happened, and for those who should not forget."—Isabel Allende