Chile tale warms the soul

The big names of Chilean literature are its exiles, but Ana Marìa Del Rìo remained in the country during Pinochet's dictatorship and fooled the censors with this tale.

Carmen and her half-brother are sent to live with relatives when their family splits up. Under the crushing regime of their grandmother and aunt, the pair's resistance manifests itself as incestuous desire. But their inevitable discovery has a disastrous effect on Carmen.

Sparely but evocatively written, and pulsing with life, Del Rìo's novel, translated into English for the first time, offers a multi-layered microcosm of this terrible period in Chilean history.