Living in the Subjunctive

A captivating story of young people fleeing for their lives from their homeland, Chile, to arrive in a country so different from anything they have ever known. Through the kindness and generosity of local people, most but not all of them, survive the trauma and uncertainties to successfully build new lives in Bristol. As the years pass, they become a part of the local community though some of them never resolve elements of their past.

After seventeen years, the military dictatorship falls and they are presented with the unsettling opportunity of returning to the land of their youth. They make their first return visit with some trepidation and excitement. However, the changes they discover in both the country and in themselves cause revelations to unfold which are intriguing and then disturbing. How they are to reconcile who they were back then with who they are now becomes a challenge for each one of them. The search for a key player in events leading up to the coup in 1973 generates fear and disagreement among them. Will that final pursuit lead to disaster or resolution?

“I read it with great interest. It’s clearly informed by a deep knowledge of the subject and a real empathy with those who suffered. I liked the fact that there’s no predictable way out of the damage done — some find ways to overcome what’s happened to them, others never can. Some can move on, some can’t do without some form of concrete justice.  A very timely book too… at a moment when something like a nostalgia for authoritarian governments is on the rise and sympathy for those forced to flee them is in very short supply.” Tom Sutcliffe, Journalist and Arts Broadcaster