Books by Patricia Politzer

“Patricia actually wrote it in 1985 towards the end of Pinochet’s regime. So it’s a courageous book because to publish books in Chile which might be seen to contain critical material was not an easy decision to make. What she does is look at a whole spectrum of people: from powerful people with money on the right, to the poorest of the poor peasants. Through their stories she reconstructed their lives and beliefs. I found it an extraordinarily moving book. The last chapter deals with the case of José Tohá, one of Allende’s ministers who was starved to death in a military hospital. His widow, because they were friends of the family, goes to Pinochet to try to find out what happened. I was actually moved to tears in this chapter because it is this woman’s attempt to come to terms with the dreadful things that have happened to her husband at the hands of someone they thought of as a friend.” Read more...

The best books on Pinochet and Chilean Politics

Alan Angell, Political Scientist