Our literary tour of Chile explores political repression under Pinochet through fact and fantasy, and magic realism’s merging of the two

The best books on Chile: start your reading here

Allende’s classic, hugely successful family saga is a masterwork of magic-realism. Fusing the personal with the political and fact with fantasy, it tells Chile’s recent history through several generations of the Trueba family, ending with a savage military coup that leads to the death of a president.



The principal protagonist, Esteban Trueba, is used to getting his own way – in his family (as an irascible patriarch), on his farm (as a wealthy landowner), and in the country (as a rightwing senator): “The day we can’t get our hands on the ballot boxes before the vote is counted, we’re done for.”

When a socialist candidate finally wins the presidential election, Trueba backs a coup. But in the ferocious denouement that follows, he finds himself sidelined as brutality and terror spiral under the newly installed military regime.

The novel celebrates the spirit and resilience of the Trueba women, which shine through the political tumult and family turbulence in this clever, witty and stunningly assured debut.

Allende’s father was a cousin of President Salvador Allende, who was overthrown and died during a military coup in 1973. In 1975, the author fled to Venezuela, and later moved to the US. She has said the book is an “attempt to recreate the country I had lost, the family I had lost”.

Donoso’s engrossing novel spans 24 hours in the stifling and oppressive political atmosphere of 1985 Santiago under General Augusto Pinochet’s military regime.



A leftwing singer returns after 13 years of exile in Paris. His fame now faded and his politics softened, Mañungo Vera is no longer the revolutionary he once was. His visit coincides with the death of Matilde Neruda, widow of the Nobel prize-winning poet and icon of the Chilean left, Pablo Neruda.

Vera is reacquainted with old friends and comrades as they prepare for the funeral. But, caught out by the curfew, he is forced to spend an eventful night on the streets with his former lover, during which they have a dangerous run-in with her suspected torturer.

Donoso paints a harrowing picture of life under the repressive regime, and shows how negotiating its daily horrors damages both individuals and society. He also shines a harsh light on the left, as factions squabble and jockey for advantage from the funeral.

This intense, introspective tale reflects the political and spiritual decay of the nation, after more than a decade of dictatorship.

The author lived abroad for 15 years, returning to Chile in 1982 while Pinochet was still in power. Curfew was the first novel he wrote after his return. He died in 1996.

Chile’s 9/11 comes in 1973, the date when – with US backing – Pinochet violently overthrows the elected government of Allende.



In a “spasm of military fury”, the regime crushes its perceived foes and begins “a reign of professional state terror”. Constable and Valenzuela show how the post-putsch climate of fear and loathing further polarises class and politics, and turns Chile into “a nation of enemies”.



The regime allows the Chicago Boys, US-trained, evangelical free-marketeers, to impose their “shock treatment” on the economy, bringing boom and bust, and winners and losers – exacerbating the divisions in society.

The authors eschew a chronological account of the 17-year dictatorship, instead offering “a window into each sector of society” through research and interviews with hundreds of Chileans.

The ageing and paranoid dictator is finally forced from office after a referendum, in which he discovers he’s much less popular than he’d imagined. Pinochet’s coup followed some 150 years of constitutional government, and the country is still coming to terms with that aberration.

This is an accessible, balanced and forensic account of how Chile lost and then found its way back to democracy and respect for human rights.

Constable is a former deputy foreign editor at the Washington Post. Valenzuela is a Chilean-American academic and former US assistant secretary of state.