The best books about Chile

Who picked these books? Meet our 40 experts.

40 authors created a book list connected to Chile, and here are their favorite Chile books.
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Bagels, Schmears, and a Nice Piece of Fish

By Cathy Barrow, Linda Xiao (photographer),

Book cover of Bagels, Schmears, and a Nice Piece of Fish: A Whole Brunch of Recipes to Make at Home

Lisa Steele Author Of The Fresh Eggs Daily Cookbook: Over 100 Fabulous Recipes to Use Eggs in Unexpected Ways

From the list on cookbooks when you’re craving breakfast food.

Who am I?

I am a New Englander, born and bred, 5th generation chicken keeper, and lifelong gardener. I currently live on a small farm in Maine where I raise chickens, ducks, and geese and grow all kinds of vegetables, herbs, and edible flowers. I love cooking and baking with fresh produce from my garden and fresh eggs from my chicken coop. Eggs, in particular, are a favorite ingredient of mine because they are so plentiful, versatile, delicious, and nutritious. Breakfast for dinner is obviously a favorite at our house. 

Lisa's book list on cookbooks when you’re craving breakfast food

Discover why each book is one of Lisa's favorite books.

Why did Lisa love this book?

Maybe you’re not in the mood for eggs this morning. Then this is the cookbook for you. First, learn to make homemade bagels, then discover all kinds of toppings, salads, and spreads to serve them with. Even those not confident in their baking skills will be able to create authentic NY bagels at home. James Beard Award nominee Cathy Barrow has written the cookbook that immediately inspired me to master homemade bagel baking.

By Cathy Barrow, Linda Xiao (photographer),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Bagels, Schmears, and a Nice Piece of Fish as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Bagel lovers rejoice! This thorough-yet-accessible cookbook demystifies bagel-making with just 5 base ingredients and straightforward techniques for making the dough, shaping the bagels, proofing, boiling, baking, storing, and more. Recipes include two dozen variations on the New York bagel, with classic and innovative flavors ranging from Sesame to Blueberry and Hatch Chile Jack, as well as homemade spreads, schmears, pickles, and other deli favorites, like home-smoked Nova and Smoked Whitefish Salad, for maximum grazing. Home bakers of all levels will delight in these reliable recipes and share them as a hostess, housewarming, or Yom Kippur gift. With suggested menus for…


Desired States

By Lessie Jo Frazier,

Book cover of Desired States: Sex, Gender, and Political Culture in Chile

Natalia Milanesio Author Of Destape: Sex, Democracy, and Freedom in Postdictatorial Argentina

From the list on the history of sexuality in modern Latin America.

Who am I?

I am a historian of twentieth-century Argentina and a professor of modern Latin American history currently teaching at the University of Houston. Born and raised in Argentina, I completed my undergraduate studies at the National University of Rosario and moved to the United States in 2000 to continue my education. I received my M.A. in history from New York University and my Ph.D. in history from Indiana University, Bloomington. I have written extensively about gender, working-class history, consumer culture, and sexuality in Argentina. I am the author of Workers Go Shopping in Argentina: The Rise of Popular Consumer Culture and Destape! Sex, Democracy, and Freedom in Postdictatorial Argentina.

Natalia's book list on the history of sexuality in modern Latin America

Discover why each book is one of Natalia's favorite books.

Why did Natalia love this book?

Using a truly interdisciplinary approach anchored in queer studies and affect theory, Frazier subverts the common approach to sex as privatized and located in individual subjectivity by looking at desire as a central component of political culture and power. The book explores a variety of Chilean political projects and actors throughout the twentieth century including feminists, the revolutionary left, and the military dictatorship to understand the ways in which both sexual and non-sexual practices and ideologies were intrinsically connected to emotions and ideas of pleasure and to sexualized and gendered discourses and experiences.

By Lessie Jo Frazier,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Desired States as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Desired States challenges the notion that in some cultures, sex and sexuality have become privatized and located in individual subjectivity rather than in public political practices and institutions. Instead, the book contends that desire is a central aspect of political culture. Based on fieldwork and archival research, Frazier explores the gendered and sexualized dynamics of political culture in Chile, an imperialist context, asking how people connect with and become mobilized in political projects in some cases or, in others, become disaffected or are excluded to varying degrees. The book situates the state in a rich and changing context of transnational…


Ode to an Onion

By Alexandria Giardino, Felicita Sala (illustrator),

Book cover of Ode to an Onion: Pablo Neruda & His Muse

Caroline McAlister Author Of John Ronald's Dragons: The Story of J. R. R. Tolkien

From the list on writers and the strange and magical things that inspired them.

Who am I?

I am an English teacher who is the child of an English teacher. I majored in comparative literature at college and went on to earn a PhD in English Literature. But the experience of reading picture books to my own children was more important to me than any fancy degree. I fell in love with books all over again, with the shape and feel of them, with the fonts, with the way the words sounded out loud, with the way the images extended and commented on the story. “Ah!” I thought, “I should write my own picture book.” So began a long and not so simple journey. I hope my own books foster a love of words, art, and creativity in both adult and child readers.

Caroline's book list on writers and the strange and magical things that inspired them

Discover why each book is one of Caroline's favorite books.

Why did Caroline love this book?

This biography focuses on one moment, one lunch, and one poem in Neruda’s long and prolific career. And yet it captures so much! Giardino manages to suggest all of the paradoxes in Neruda’s life and work—the sadness and the joy, the grand themes of labor and oppression, and the ordinary sensuous details of daily life. The story arc begins with gloom and the solitary work of writing, but ends with a celebration and a shared meal. The end pages are papery onion skin that the child reader will want to touch. Neruda’s poem, “Ode to an Onion,” is printed in the back in Spanish and English. I can see children being inspired to write their own odes to ordinary objects.

By Alexandria Giardino, Felicita Sala (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Ode to an Onion as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A poetic, beautifully illustrated picture book inspired by Ode to the Onion by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904-1973). Pablo has a lunch date with his friend Matilde, who shows the moody poet her garden. Where Pablo sees conflict and sadness, Matilde sees love and hope. The story is less a biography of Neruda and his muse, Matilde Urrutia (1912-1985), and more a simple ode to a vegetable that is humble and luminous, dark and light, gloomy and glad, full of grief and full of joy-just like life.A Junior Library Guild Selection


Paula

By Isabel Allende,

Book cover of Paula: A Memoir

Joanne Greene Author Of By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go

From the list on by and about wise, vulnerable, badass women.

Who am I?

When called a badass, I say thank you. Though I was raised to say and do the right thing, I’ve spent a lifetime speaking my truth, on radio and now on podcasts, being both reverent and irreverent. It took losing three immediate family members and getting hit by a car as a pedestrian for me to learn that I don’t have to be in perpetual motion. I went from being the baby of my family to being the matriarch in a heartbeat and am honored to share what I’ve learned about resilience and authenticity in my first book, By Accident: A Memoir of Letting Go.  

Joanne's book list on by and about wise, vulnerable, badass women

Discover why each book is one of Joanne's favorite books.

Why did Joanne love this book?

I cannot imagine sitting at the bedside of one of my children in a coma.

Isabel Allende not only did that, but used her grief, fear, pain, hope, optimism, memory, and humor to write an extraordinarily compelling book. We come to know not only Paula, Isabel’s gravely ill daughter, but a colorful cast of characters from the family’s past.

We learn about Chilean history and somehow find ourselves laughing and crying in the same chapter. At least I did. Allende is a master with words – and English is not her first language. Do yourself a favor and read this gem.

By Isabel Allende,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Paula as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"Beautiful and heartrending. . . . Memoir, autobiography, epicedium, perhaps even some fiction: they are all here, and they are all quite wonderful."-Los Angeles Times

In this literary classic, New York Times bestselling author Isabel Allende recalls the story of her beloved daughter and her remarkable family's past.

When her daughter, Paula, became gravely ill and fell into a coma, Isabel Allende began to write the story of her family for her unconscious child. Bizarre ancestors are introduced; delightful and bitter childhood memories are shared; amazing anecdotes of youthful years are relived, and the most intimate secrets are quietly passed…


We Were Never Here

By Andrea Bartz,

Book cover of We Were Never Here

Wendy Walker Author Of Don't Look for Me

From the list on passing the time during a global pandemic.

Who am I?

I write thrillers and read thrillers, so naturally, I’m drawn to dark, twisted stories. That said, because I have become adept at spotting plot twists, it takes a really great book to hold my attention. I also love a strong psychological or emotional component that keeps me reading. Give me your damaged, complex, and morally challenged characters and I will follow them anywhere! The books I’ve chosen all have one or more of these qualities and achieved the task of providing a few precious hours of blissful escape from worry over (nothing less than) an ongoing global pandemic!

Wendy's book list on passing the time during a global pandemic

Discover why each book is one of Wendy's favorite books.

Why did Wendy love this book?

Andrea Bartz’s twisty tale about two friends (aptly compared to Thelma and Louise), dead bodies piling up around them, and secrets they hold from the past is a fresh backdrop for a genre that has been dominated by domestic set-ups. Delving into the complexities of female friendships and how they can control and define us, I found this to be a thoroughly engaging read. A New York Times Bestseller and Hello Sunshine Book Club pick, you can’t go wrong with We Were Never Here!

By Andrea Bartz,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked We Were Never Here as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK • “This book is every suspense lover’s dream and it kept me up way too late turning pages. . . . A novel with crazy twists and turns that will have you ditching your Friday night plans for more chapters.”—Reese Witherspoon

A backpacking trip has deadly consequences in this “eerie psychological thriller . . . with alluring locales, Hitchcockian tension, and possibly the best pair of female leads since Thelma and Louise” (BookPage), from the bestselling author of The Lost Night and The Herd.

A Marie Claire Book Club Pick •…


Arauco

By John Caviglia,

Book cover of Arauco

Bryn Hammond Author Of Against Walls

From the list on seriously epic historical fiction.

Who am I?

My Amgalant series follows the Secret History of the Mongols, which, though a history of the rise of Chinggis Khan, draws on an oral epic tradition. I always liked epics. Gilgamesh and the Saga of Grettir the Strong are among the fiction that most moves me. I look for historical fiction that owes to epic not only its story but its storytelling. The epic makers, ancient and medieval, knew craft we still can learn from. Quote epic at me, or misquote – homage, but own it. I like epic size and scope, but also intimate epic, with a close-up on the people that is post-19th-century novel. Epic has room for everything.

Bryn's book list on seriously epic historical fiction

Discover why each book is one of Bryn's favorite books.

Why did Bryn love this book?

Another big, ambitious book that tells a war from both sides: here the 16th-century Spanish invasion of Chile. Equal time is given to the cast of Spaniards and the cast of Mapuche – large casts in each case. You’ll learn a battery of Mapuche words, for epics were always educative. What I love most, perhaps, about this book – after the shaman Ñamku, whom you see on the wonderful cover – is its witty style, its wordplay, gambolling in its sentences like a porpoise in the ocean, for sheer exuberance’s sake. Exuberance is a quality of epic. Along with expansiveness, and arguably, the upturn at the end, the grace note in spite of atrocities.

By John Caviglia,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Arauco as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Set in a land of earthquakes and towering volcanoes, weaving history with myth, Arauco tells of war, sorcery ... and a love demonstrating that a man can embrace what he was seeking to destroy.When in 1540 Pedro de Valdivia headed south from Peru to conquer lands and gold, he took with him his beautiful mistress, Inés de Suárez. With him also rode his secretary, Juan de Cardeña, whose hopeless love of Inés stems from the same romances that inspired the Quixote. Having crossed the Atacama Desert, the Spanish encounter the indomitable resistance of the Mapuche people....For the first time, Arauco…


The Falling Sky

By Pippa Goldschmidt,

Book cover of The Falling Sky

Paul Murdin Author Of The Secret Lives of Planets: Order, Chaos, and Uniqueness in the Solar System

From the list on with fictional female astronomers.

Who am I?

Astronomy teaches us that our bodies are quite literally star stuff, chemical elements made inside exploding stars. For much of my life, I studied and researched astronomy in universities, and in observatories on remote and beautiful mountain tops and in space.  I explored the cosmos for its own sake, but I came to realise also that we are literally and metaphorically a part of the Universe, not apart from it. Just as the science of astronomy has done for me, these novels put humanity against the same backdrop: cosmic lives seen through women’s eyes. 

Paul's book list on with fictional female astronomers

Discover why each book is one of Paul's favorite books.

Why did Paul love this book?

Scottish astronomer and novelist Pippa Goldschmidt mixes astronomy and fiction in her novel. The book provides insight into the way that astronomy is carried out now in modern, remote, mountain-top observatories and in space (I can vouch for its verisimilitude). Jeanette is a young, lonely, junior researcher working in a university department dominated by male egos and incompetents. She puts academic politics and unsatisfactory affairs aside and travels to a mountain-top observatory in Chile for her research, making an unexpected discovery that throws her into conflict with her colleagues. Like her love life, her scientific life spirals out of her control: the Universe is ordered by science but her life and the lives of scientists are not.

By Pippa Goldschmidt,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Falling Sky as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A blackly comic campus satire combined with a heart-breaking family mystery, The Falling Sky brilliantly mixes fiction and astronomy into a fascinating, compelling, and moving narrative

Jeanette is a young, solitary post-doctoral researcher who has dedicated her life to studying astronomy. Struggling to compete in a prestigious university department dominated by egos and incompetents, and caught in a cycle of brief and unsatisfying affairs, she travels to a mountaintop observatory in Chile to focus on her research. There Jeanette stumbles upon evidence that will challenge the fundamentals of the universe, drawing her into conflict with her colleagues and the scientific…


My Tender Matador

By Pedro Lemebel, Katherine Silver (translator),

Book cover of My Tender Matador

Trebor Healey Author Of A Horse Named Sorrow

From the list on erotic themes that are imaginative and insightful.

Who am I?

I’ve been writing stories and poems with erotic themes since I first entered the spoken word scene in 1980s San Francisco. As a young queer boy, raised in the highly eroticized Catholic Church, I was actually comfortable talking about and writing about sex and eros as I’d been stigmatized by it, and it got me fascinated with what the big deal was and why writers were afraid to approach it or why they did so in a corny/predictable/idealized and/or often dishonest and clumsy way. Soon I was teaching erotic writing and have been integrating it into my writing in honest, fresh, and enlivening ways—and helping others do soever since.

Trebor's book list on erotic themes that are imaginative and insightful

Discover why each book is one of Trebor's favorite books.

Why did Trebor love this book?

Lemebel was a courageous and flamboyant activist during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Having lived in Chile myself, I think this book captures the erotic Chilean soul in all its humor, grief, and idealism at an important historical moment. The hopelessly romantic and delightfully ironic seamstress/protagonist Queen of the Corner lives on a rooftop in one of Santiago’s poorest barrios and hosts discussion groups by local leftist students who keep leaving behind really heavy boxes, ostensibly full of books, as they prepare a vague plan that will have enormous implications. The group’s ringleader Carlos is a charmer ala Che Guevara, and the Queen is soon head over heels in love as a friendship and a tender unrequited love affair begins. A story of remarkable humanism that mixes the erotic with revolution.

By Pedro Lemebel, Katherine Silver (translator),

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked My Tender Matador as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Centered around the 1986 attempt on the life of Augusto Pinochet, an event that changed Chile forever, My Tender Matador is one of the most explosive, controversial, and popular novels to have been published in that country in decades. It is spring 1986 in the city of Santiago, and Augusto Pinochet is losing his grip on power. In one of the city's many poor neighborhoods works the Queen of the Corner, a hopeless and lonely romantic who embroiders linens for the wealthy and listens to boleros to drown out the gunshots and rioting in the streets. Along comes Carlos, a…


The Dance of Reality

By Alexandro Jodorowsky,

Book cover of The Dance of Reality: A Psychomagical Autobiography

Mike Russell Author Of Nothing Is Strange

From the list on surreal, magical, and mind-expanding stories.

Who am I?

Hello. My name is Mike Russell. I write books (novels, short story collections and novellas) and make visual art (mostly paintings, occasionally sculptures). I love art and books that are surreal and magical because that is the way life seems to me, and I love art and books that are mind-expanding because we need to expand our minds to perceive just how surreal and magical life is. My books have been described as strange fiction, weird fiction, surrealism, magic realism, fantasy fiction… but I just like to call them Strange Books.

Mike's book list on surreal, magical, and mind-expanding stories

Discover why each book is one of Mike's favorite books.

Why did Mike love this book?

Discovering the art of Alejandro Jodorowsky helped me to remove limitations from my own art. It was a joy to discover his work and it was a further joy to discover that his life has been just as uncompromising, surreal, and magical as his art. He has hung out with circus people, shamans, great artists (Marcel Marceau, Leonora Carrington, Jean Giraud… the list goes on). His novels, autobiographies, comic books, movies, and pictures are all fantastic. 

By Alexandro Jodorowsky,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Dance of Reality as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Not a traditional autobiography composed of a chronological recounting of memories, Dance of Realityrepaints events from Jodorowsky's life from the perspective of an unleashed imagination. Like the psychomagic and metagenealogy therapies he created, this autobiography exposes the mythic models and family templates upon which the events of everyday life are founded. It reveals the development of Jodorowsky's realization that all problems are rooted in the family tree and explains, through vivid examples from his own life, particularly interactions with his father and mother, how the individual's road to true fulfilment means casting off the phantoms projected by parents on their…


Book cover of Two Against Cape Horn

Nicholas Coghlan Author Of Winter in Fireland: A Patagonian Sailing Adventure

From the list on sailing in Patagonia.

Who am I?

My first experience of sailing was in an open dinghy in the North Sea in winter; the second was capsizing in the path of a hovercraft at Cowes. I was put off for years. But once Jenny and I moved to spectacular British Columbia, we were inspired to try again. In 1985 we left on what would become a 4-year circumnavigation of the world; more recently and over several years we made our way back under sail from Cape Town to BC, spending a year in Patagonian waters. My other (paying) career has been as a diplomat, which is everything long-distance-sailing is not: people, rules, compromises, convention. Over the years, things have more-or-less balanced out.

Nicholas' book list on sailing in Patagonia

Discover why each book is one of Nicholas' favorite books.

Why did Nicholas love this book?

In the 1960s and 70s, Americans Hal and Margaret Roth popularized long-distance ocean cruising in the USA much as Eric and Susan Hiscock did in the UK. In a series of accessible and well-illustrated books Hal narrated their adventures sailing all over the world, aboard a 35-ft sloop called Whisper. The climactic moment of his story of their 1978 voyage from California through the Chilean channels is starkly summed up at the end of Chapter Eight: “We were shipwrecked on uninhabited islands only a few miles from Cape Horn.” Whisper’s crew live on a beach for nine days, are rescued by the Chilean navy then come back to re-float her. Our copy of this book still has stains, from four years on board Bosun Bird in those same waters. Every time I look at the double-page spread of Whisper on the rocks I shiver and think: “There but…

By Hal Roth,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Two Against Cape Horn as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Tells of two veteran sailors who set out to sail to a little-known archipelago and then around Cape Horn and succeeded only after their boat was wrecked on their first attempt


Buying Into the Regime

By Heidi Tinsman,

Book cover of Buying Into the Regime: Grapes and Consumption in Cold War Chile and the United States

Allyson Brantley Author Of Brewing a Boycott: How a Grassroots Coalition Fought Coors and Remade American Consumer Activism

From the list on boycotts & consumer activism.

Who am I?

I’m a Colorado-raised and California-based historian, professor, and writer. I recently published my first book, Brewing a Boycott: How a Grassroots Coalition Fought Coors and Remade American Consumer Activism, which explores the history of one of the longest-running consumer boycotts in American history – the boycott of Coors beer. In telling this particular history, I became fascinated with the boycott as a tool of protest and activism. The boycott is an iconic and regular feature of American politics and history, but it is often dismissed as ineffective or passive. The books on this list (as well as many others) have helped to convince me that the boycott and consumer activism can be powerful forms of solidarity-building and protest.

Allyson's book list on boycotts & consumer activism

Discover why each book is one of Allyson's favorite books.

Why did Allyson love this book?

You’ll never look at table grapes the same after reading Tinsman’s excellent Buying into the Regime. Her book takes a different approach from the texts above – instead of looking at a single movement, she focuses on a single industry (Chilean grapes) in multiple contexts: cultivation in Chile, Cold War consumption in the United States, and consumer activism and grape boycotts in both nations. The result is a remarkable transnational history that underscores how consumption itself is a “terrain of political struggle.” Tinsman’s expansive perspective, which engages a number of different fields, also offers lessons for activists in the age of globalization, notably that building transnational alliances is incredibly difficult work.

By Heidi Tinsman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Buying Into the Regime as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Buying into the Regime is a transnational history of how Chilean grapes created new forms of consumption and labor politics in both the United States and Chile. After seizing power in 1973, Augusto Pinochet embraced neoliberalism, transforming Chile's economy. The country became the world's leading grape exporter. Heidi Tinsman traces the rise of Chile's fruit industry, examining how income from grape production enabled fruit workers, many of whom were women, to buy the commodities-appliances, clothing, cosmetics-flowing into Chile, and how this new consumerism influenced gender relations, as well as pro-democracy movements. Back in the United States, Chilean and U.S. businessmen…


Pablo Neruda

By Monica Brown, Julie Paschkis (illustrator),

Book cover of Pablo Neruda: Poet of the People

Elizabeth Brown Author Of Like a Diamond in the Sky: Jane Taylor's Beloved Poem of Wonder and the Stars

From the list on children’s books about writers.

Who am I?

I’m an author and a college writing professor with an MFA in Creative Writing. Additionally, I am involved in and teach other art forms and the humanities including music, film, and literature. I enjoy researching and writing about literary figures, musicians, and other creatives, all of which have been a focus in my children’s books.

Elizabeth's book list on children’s books about writers

Discover why each book is one of Elizabeth's favorite books.

Why did Elizabeth love this book?

Monica Brown’s picture book biography of Pablo Neruda is a wonderfully written account of his life and the creation of his beautiful writing and poems that sing, even under the weight of tremendous struggles. The lyrical text soars on the page while Julie Paschkis’ colorful illustrations capture the heart and soul of the poet of the people. This is a must-read!

By Monica Brown, Julie Paschkis (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Pablo Neruda as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A stunning picture book biography from Monica Brown and illustrator Julie Paschkis about one of the world's most enduring and popular poets, Pablo Neruda

Once there was a little boy named Neftalí who loved wild things wildly and quiet things quietly. From the moment he could talk, he surrounded himself with words. Neftalí discovered the magic between the pages of books. When he was sixteen, he began publishing his poems as Pablo Neruda.

Pablo wrote poems about the things he loved―things made by his friends in the café, things found at the marketplace, and things he saw in nature. He…


In the Midst of Winter

By Isabel Allende,

Book cover of In the Midst of Winter

Vee Kumari Author Of Dharma: A Rekha Rao Mystery

From the list on families disguised as mysteries.

Who am I?

Being an immigrant from India, a culture that places family values above all else, I am drawn to books that explore family conflicts, secrets, and the triumph of love against all odds. When an author incorporates these themes into a mystery, the book becomes more than a simple formulaic whodunnit story that educates me about the complexities of our lives.

Vee's book list on families disguised as mysteries

Discover why each book is one of Vee's favorite books.

Why did Vee love this book?

Having loved Allende’s previous novels, this tale of history and suspense took me into the magical worlds of South American culture, to gain a better understanding of what the immigrant experience is really like for other people. Redacting from a reviewer’s comment, “this story filled with Allende's signature lyricism and ingenious plotting, teaches us what it means to respect, protect, and love.”

By Isabel Allende,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked In the Midst of Winter as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

New York Times and worldwide bestselling author Isabel Allende returns with a sweeping novel that journeys from present-day Brooklyn to Guatemala in the recent past to 1970s Chile and Brazil that offers “a timely message about immigration and the meaning of home” (People).

During the biggest Brooklyn snowstorm in living memory, Richard Bowmaster, a lonely university professor in his sixties, hits the car of Evelyn Ortega, a young undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, and what at first seems an inconvenience takes a more serious turn when Evelyn comes to his house, seeking help. At a loss, the professor asks his tenant,…


Book cover of Bread, Justice, and Liberty: Grassroots Activism and Human Rights in Pinochet's Chile

Debbie Sharnak Author Of Of Light and Struggle: Social Justice, Human Rights, and Accountability in Uruguay

From the list on human rights in Latin America.

Who am I?

I worked at the International Center for Transitional Justice in 2009 when Uruguay held a second referendum to overturn the country’s amnesty law that protected the police and military from prosecution for human rights abuses during the country’s dictatorship. Despite the country’s stable democracy and progressive politics in the 21st century, citizens quite surprisingly rejected the opportunity to overturn the state-sanctioned impunity law. My interest in broader accountability efforts in the world and that seemingly shocking vote in Uruguay drove me to want to study the roots of that failed effort, ultimately compelling a broader investigation into how human rights culture in Uruguay evolved, particularly during and after its period of military rule. 

Debbie's book list on human rights in Latin America

Discover why each book is one of Debbie's favorite books.

Why did Debbie love this book?

So many books about the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile focus on the particularities of violence during that awful period in the country’s history.

Yet, Bread, Justice, and Liberty looks at a longer trajectory of the struggle for human rights in the country that focuses on socioeconomic justice that began long before the coup of September 11, 1973, and also continued much further afterward.

It is a beautifully written monograph that focuses on shantytown communities’ experiences and activism and expands our understanding of Chilean politics and human rights. 

By Alison Bruey,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Bread, Justice, and Liberty as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winner of the SECOLAS Alfred B. Thomas Book Award
Named Best Social Science Book, LASA Southern Cone Studies Section

In Santiago, Chile, poverty and state violence have often led to grassroots resistance movements among the poor and working class. Alison J. Bruey offers a compelling history of the struggle for social justice and democracy during the Pinochet dictatorship. Deeply grounded by both extensive oral history interviews and archival research, Bread, Justice, and Liberty provides innovative contributions to scholarship on Chilean history, social movements, popular protest and democratization, neoliberal economics, and the Cold War in Latin America.


The Cry of the Renegade

By Raymond B. Craib,

Book cover of The Cry of the Renegade: Politics and Poetry in Interwar Chile

Kirwin R. Shaffer Author Of Anarchists of the Caribbean: Countercultural Politics and Transnational Networks in the Age of US Expansion

From the list on Latin American anarchism and anti-authoritarianism.

Who am I?

As someone who studies and writes about Latin American anarchism for a living, I’ve encountered no shortage of influential historical accounts written by scholars and activists writing in Spanish, Portuguese, and English during the past sixty years. My “best of” list includes English-language histories that reflect important shifts in how people began to study and write about anarchism beginning in the 1990s. Before then—and continuing up to today to some extent—historians often focused on the role of anarchists in a country’s labor movement. Today, historians increasingly explore both the cultural and transnational dimensions of Latin American anarchism. In these studies, authors frequently explore the roles of and attitudes toward women in anarchist politics.

Kirwin's book list on Latin American anarchism and anti-authoritarianism

Discover why each book is one of Kirwin's favorite books.

Why did Kirwin love this book?

Craib’s Renegade uses a biographical approach to explore larger cultural and transnational politics—this time in early twentieth-century Chile. Again, migration—so crucial to the history of Latin American anarchism—plays a central role in understanding the multinational dimensions of anarchism in countries across the region. Craib uses the life and death of the anarchist poet Domingo Gómez Rojas, along with his friends and comrades, to explore the Chilean anarchists and their relations with student rebels. The book illustrates how anarchists in Chile created urban “transnational communities” of anarchists born in Santiago, anarchists who moved to the capital, and anarchists who immigrated to Chile. They then used their culture and multinational experiences to forge transnational connections beyond Chile.

By Raymond B. Craib,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Cry of the Renegade as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

On October 1, 1920, the city of Santiago, Chile, came to a halt as tens of thousands stopped work and their daily activities to join the funeral procession of Jose Domingo Gomez Rojas, a 24 year old university student and acclaimed poet. Nicknamed "the firecracker poet" for his incendiary poems, such as "The Cry of the Renegade", Gomez Rojas was a member of the University of Chile's student federation (the FECh) which had come under repeated attack for
its critiques of Chile's political system and ruling parties. Government officials accused the FECh's leaders of being advocates for the destruction of…


The Pinochet File

By Peter Kornbluh,

Book cover of The Pinochet File: A Declassified Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability

Tom Gething Author Of Under a False Flag

From the list on covert ops in Latin America.

Who am I?

I’m always delighted when a reader asks, “Did you work for the CIA?” It tells me I achieved the verisimilitude I was striving for in Under a False Flag. I’m also proud that my novel has been included in a university-level Latin American history curriculum. That tells me I got the history right. No aspect of modern history is more intriguing or controversial than the role covert action played, for better or worse, in the Cold War. With the exception of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which took us to the brink of nuclear disaster, the Cold War in Latin America was mostly fought in the shadows with markedly ambivalent achievements.

Tom's book list on covert ops in Latin America

Discover why each book is one of Tom's favorite books.

Why did Tom love this book?

The 1973 coup in Chile violently destroyed the freely elected Marxist government of Salvador Allende and installed the brutal 17-year dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. For years afterward suspicions swirled that the U.S. was behind the event. But evidence was largely anecdotal. What is so impressive about this book is Kornbluh’s persistence deploying the Freedom of Information Act to obtain thousands of classified documents related to the coup. Kornbluh connects the dots and reveals the smoking guns. Through facsimiles of actual cables, telexes, and phone memos (many still highly redacted) this dossier allows you to draw your own conclusions about what really happened in Chile.

By Peter Kornbluh,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Pinochet File as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Pinochet File reveals a record of complicity with atrocity by the U.S. government. The documents, first declassified for the original edition of the book, formed the heart of the campaign to hold Gen. Pinochet accountable for murder, torture and terrorism. The New York Times wrote of the original 2003 edition, 'Thanks to Peter Kornbluh, we have the first complete, almost day-to-day and fully documented record of this sordid chapter in Cold War American History.' With this 40th anniversary edition, the record is even more complete and up-to-date.


By Night in Chile

By Roberto Bolaño, Chris Andrews (translator),

Book cover of By Night in Chile

Chana Porter Author Of The Seep

From the list on to shock, expand, and engulf you.

Who am I?

Writer and essayist Agnes Borinsky called my debut novel The Seep, A swift shock of a novel that has shifted how I see our world.Here are five short, urgent novels that continue to live with me in the months and years after reading them. These are some of my most beloved books, all of which happen to be under 200 pages, which ache with the inner mystery of what is hidden, and what is revealed. These books are my teachers, each a precise masterclass in world building, suspense, and purposeful storytelling. Enjoy these ‘swift shocks!’

Chana's book list on to shock, expand, and engulf you

Discover why each book is one of Chana's favorite books.

Why did Chana love this book?

Im also a playwright, so I really admire a full story told in propulsive first-person monologue. This novella is a confession of Father Urrutia from his deathbed, beginning with the line I am dying now, but I still have many things to say.As he speaks, the priest untangles the twisted, uncomfortable agreements between artists and institutions in Chile under Pinochet. I often recommend this book for people who have not yet read Bolaño and might feel intimated by the length of his major works. 

By Roberto Bolaño, Chris Andrews (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked By Night in Chile as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

As through a crack in the wall, By Night in Chile's single night-long rant provides a terrifying, clandestine view of the strange bedfellows of Church and State in Chile. This wild, eerily compact novel-Roberto Bolano's first work available in English-recounts the tale of a poor boy who wanted to be a poet, but ends up a half-hearted Jesuit priest and a conservative literary critic, a sort of lap dog to the rich and powerful cultural elite, in whose villas he encounters Pablo Neruda and Ernst Junger. Father Urrutia is offered a tour of Europe by agents of Opus Dei (to…


Reagan and Pinochet

By Morris Morley, Chris McGillion,

Book cover of Reagan and Pinochet: The Struggle Over U.S. Policy Toward Chile

Russell C. Crandall Author Of "Our Hemisphere"? The United States in Latin America, from 1776 to the Twenty-First Century

From the list on U.S. involvement in Latin America.

Who am I?

I've been interested in U.S.-Latin American relations ever since my junior year in college when I studied abroad in Chile, a country that had only two years prior been run by dictator Augusto Pinochet. Often referred to as America’s “backyard,” Latin America has often been on the receiving end of U.S. machinations and expansions. In terms of the history of American foreign policy, it's never a dull moment in U.S. involvement in its own hemisphere. I have now had the privilege to work inside the executive branch of the U.S. government on Latin America policy, stints which have forced me to reconsider some of what I had assumed about U.S. abilities and outcomes. 

Russell's book list on U.S. involvement in Latin America

Discover why each book is one of Russell's favorite books.

Why did Russell love this book?

So much ink has been spent on the Nixon administration’s early 1970s plotting and policies during the regime of democratic socialist president Salvador Allende. This exquisite book is a sharp reminder that, while far less studied, the Reagan administration was deeply involved in a Chile run by the very political actor who ousted Allende: General Augusto Pinochet. Yet, contrary to what we often assumed, the Reagan team eventually embraced a policy aimed to get Washington’s erstwhile ally out of power. 

By Morris Morley, Chris McGillion,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Reagan and Pinochet as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book is the first comprehensive study of the Reagan administration's policy toward the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile. Based on new primary and archival materials, as well as on original interviews with former US and Chilean officials, it traces the evolution of Reagan policy from an initial 'close embrace' of the junta to a re-evaluation of whether Pinochet was a risk to long-term US interests in Chile and, finally, to an acceptance in Washington of the need to push for a return to democracy. It provides fresh insights into the bureaucratic conflicts that were a key…


How to Order the Universe

By María José Ferrada, Elizabeth Bryer (translator),

Book cover of How to Order the Universe

Chana Porter Author Of The Seep

From the list on to shock, expand, and engulf you.

Who am I?

Writer and essayist Agnes Borinsky called my debut novel The Seep, A swift shock of a novel that has shifted how I see our world.Here are five short, urgent novels that continue to live with me in the months and years after reading them. These are some of my most beloved books, all of which happen to be under 200 pages, which ache with the inner mystery of what is hidden, and what is revealed. These books are my teachers, each a precise masterclass in world building, suspense, and purposeful storytelling. Enjoy these ‘swift shocks!’

Chana's book list on to shock, expand, and engulf you

Discover why each book is one of Chana's favorite books.

Why did Chana love this book?

In this beguiling short novel just out from Tin House, Ferrara also examines the Pinochet regime, but through the eyes of a child. 7-year-old M sells tools to hardware stores with her salesman father, slowly realizing his downtrodden place in their society, along with dark secrets about the world around her. The dance of revelations through the young narrators perspective is poetic and effective. I read this in an afternoon, oscillating between feeling breathless and meditative. A high wire act, to say the least. 

By María José Ferrada, Elizabeth Bryer (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked How to Order the Universe as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A San Francisco Chronicle and Southwest Review Best Book of the Year and A World Literature Today Notable Translation of the Year

“A dreamscape of a book. I adored this compelling, wise, and utterly unique coming-of-age tale.” ―Tara Conklin

For seven-year-old M, the world is guided by a firm set of principles, based on her father D’s life as a traveling salesman. Enchanted by her father’s trade, M convinces him to take her along on his routes, selling hardware supplies against the backdrop of Pinochet-era Chile. As father and daughter trek from town to town in their old Renault, M’s…


The Night Watch

By David Atlee Phillips,

Book cover of The Night Watch: 25 Years of Peculiar Service

Tom Gething Author Of Under a False Flag

From the list on covert ops in Latin America.

Who am I?

I’m always delighted when a reader asks, “Did you work for the CIA?” It tells me I achieved the verisimilitude I was striving for in Under a False Flag. I’m also proud that my novel has been included in a university-level Latin American history curriculum. That tells me I got the history right. No aspect of modern history is more intriguing or controversial than the role covert action played, for better or worse, in the Cold War. With the exception of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which took us to the brink of nuclear disaster, the Cold War in Latin America was mostly fought in the shadows with markedly ambivalent achievements.

Tom's book list on covert ops in Latin America

Discover why each book is one of Tom's favorite books.

Why did Tom love this book?

David Atlee Phillips played such a major role in covert ops in Latin America I had to make sure he appeared in my novel. After a long and successful CIA career, Phillips wrote this memoir of undercover derring-do. It reads like recruiting propaganda for the agency but what fascinated me was his frankness about the missions he ran and the methods he used. He was publisher of an English-language newspaper in Chile when the CIA recruited him in 1950. A natural storyteller, Phillips describes his undercover shenanigans in Guatemala, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Brazil. By the 1970s he was at Langley HQ, in charge of all Western Hemisphere covert ops, including the actions (discreetly omitted in his memoir) leading to the coup in Chile.

By David Atlee Phillips,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Night Watch as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

For 25 years David Atlee Phillips stood "the night watch" for the CIA. He directed Western Hemisphere Operations when the Chilean government was overthrown (with CIA help) in 1973.

Phillips details his experiences in 18 countries. Along the way, we learn much about "the company," certainly one of the least understood and most controversial pillars of our defense ever to have been invented.

"Phillips is as skilled a writer as he was a spook, and his astonishingly readable book makes a convincing case for the necessity of an intelligence service such as the CIA." --Joseph C. Goulden.