Literature

Allende, Isabel. The House of the Spirits. New York: Knopf, 1985. Set amidst the tumult of the agrarian reform of the author’s uncle’s presidency, this novel is perhaps her most political.

Allende, Isabel. Of Love and Shadows. New York: Knopf, 1987. Combining graphic and magical realism, Allende’s second novel follows the transformation of a privileged but sheltered young woman who finally grasps the grisly truth behind the Pinochet dictatorship.

Allende, Isabel. Daughter of Fortune. New York: Harper Collins, 1999. Set in North and South America, Allende’s 19th-century romance fashions a vivid portrait of early Valparaíso [1], illuminates the underappreciated role of Chileans in the California gold rush, and even offers an imaginative speculation on the Joaquín Murieta legend.

Blest Gana, Alberto. Martín Rivas. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Originally published in 1863, now in English translation, this early Chilean novel tells the story of a young man from the Norte Grande as he tries to make his way into Santiago society.

Donoso, José. Curfew. New York: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1988. An end-of-the-dictatorship novel from the viewpoint of a returned exile folk musician.

Dorfman, Ariel. Hard Rain. London: Readers International, 1990. A novel set in Allende’s Chile and published shortly thereafter in Spanish but not in English until many years later.

Fuguet, Alberto. Bad Vibes. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997. Tale of apolitical alienation in Pinochet’s Chile by an author whose motto is “I am not a magical realist.”

Skármeta, Antonio. Burning Patience. New York: Pantheon, 1987. The fictional account of Pablo Neruda’s counsel to a childishly infatuated postman, later transformed into the Oscar-winning film Il Postino (The Postman).