The Chilean Dictatorship Novel

Memory, Postmemory, Affect, and Emotions

Helene Carol Weldt-Basson

• Publisher: UNM Press
• Year: 2025
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9780826369017
• Subtopic: Latin American & Caribbean History
• Index: Literature

A survey of classic literature from Chile born of the repressive Pinochet dictatorship in the seventies.

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 the 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 a father's 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.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1. Introduction: History, Memory, Postmemory, and Empathy
• Chapter 2. Sins of the Fathers: Abandonment and Loss in Nona Fernández’s Novels Mapocho and Fuenzalida and Álvaro Bisama’s El brujo
• Chapter 3. Expressions of Despair: Romance Plots and Affective Landscapes in José Donoso’s La desesperanza, Carlos Franz’s Santiago Cero, Álvaro Bisama’s Estrellas muertas, and Germán Marín’s El palacio de la risa
• Chapter 4. Melancholic Allegories in Ariel Dorfman’s La última canción de Manuel Sendero and Diamela Eltit’s Jamás el fuego nunca
• Chapter 5. Betrayal and Abjection in Luce Arce’s El infierno, Arturo Fontaine’s La vida doble, and Carlos Franz’s El desierto and Almuerzo de vampiros
• Chapter 6. Affect and Empathy in Nona Fernández’s La dimensión desconocida, Alia Trabucco Zerán’s La resta, and Fátima Sime’s Carne de perra
• Chapter 7. Conclusion: The Chilean Dictatorship Novel in Context
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Index