Luz Arce and Pinochet's Chile

Since the demise of the Pinochet dictatorship in 1990, collaboration and complicity - both in the torture chamber and civil society - have been taboo topics not only for the Chilean left but also for society at large. By revisiting the experience of Luz Arce Sandoval - a leftist militant turned collaborator with Pinochet's secret police - Luz Arce and Pinochet's Chile raises urgent political and ethical questions about how nations carry out unspeakable violence in the name of "progress" and "democracy." Juxtaposing interviews, legal documents, and academic analysis, this book probes the personal and collective dimensions of torture, collaborationism, truth, justice, reconciliation, and memory, issues that resonate in Latin America and beyond.

"In Luz Arce and Pinochet's Chile, Michael J. Lazzara constructs a scene in which the decisive problem of ethical limits unfolds. He invites us to inhabit an intense and unstable Chilean territory: the life of a prisoner-collaborator who progressively becomes militarized and entirely estranged from herself." - Diamela Eltit, New York University

"This is a fascinating and controversial testimonial project that combines legal deposition, interview and testimony. The figure of the traitor raises questions of torture and betrayal and suggests as well the ways onlookers or readers become complicit subjects with the seduction of power. The story of Luz Arce - an "abject biography" - inspires both revulsion and commiseration. Because of the extraordinary documentation and research, I found the study to be immensely compelling. Lazzara delves deeply into the story to raise some of the most difficulty questions of reconciliation. It is forceful because it convinces us that truth, memory and justice are not always separate from their opposites, that the personal and national crisis cannot always be contained within one narrative." - Gwen Kirkpatrick, Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, Georgetown University

"This is a one-of-a-kind testimony about the complex and ambiguous reactions that the Pinochet regime generated among millions of Chileans. Bringing Luz Arce's story and voice to the forefront will help scholars, students, and ordinary citizens understand the'gray zone' of the memory battles that continue to haunt Chilean society. The unspeakable speaks in this gripping account of the life of one of the most vilified characters in contemporary Chilean society." - Carlos Aguirre, University of Oregon

MICHAEL LAZZARA Assistant Professor of Latin American Literature and Culture at the University of California, Davis, USA.