Nona Fernandez

One of the world's foremost spots for astronomical observation, the Atacama Desert in Chile is also where, in October 1973, twenty-six people were executed by Pinochet's Caravan of Death. Decades on, a petition gathers for a constellation's stars to be dedicated to them. Nona Fernández is made a god-mother to Mario Argüelles Toro, star HD89353, and asked to write a...

It is 1984 in Chile, in the middle of the Pinochet dictatorship. A member of the secret police walks into the office of a dissident magazine and finds a reporter, who records his testimony. Our narrator is a child when she first sees this man's face on the magazine's cover with the words 'I Tortured People', and his complicity in...

Preoccupied by uneasy memories and visions, a group of friends look back on their childhood. Their dreams circle their old classmate Estrella González Jepsen. They catch glimpses of her braids, hear echoes of her voice, and read old letters. They recall regimented school assemblies, nationalistic class performances, and a trip to the beach. It soon transpires that Estrella's father was...