The document summarizes a presentation on a collection of short stories by Chilean authors published after the end of Chile's dictatorship in the early 1990s. It provides an overview of the authors, plots of some of the stories, and discusses the historical, political, and cultural context in which the stories were written. The stories explore themes of human cruelty and the lasting impacts of the dictatorship on individuals and society in Chile at that time. They use first-person perspectives to immerse the reader in the emotions of characters dealing with oppression, poverty, and mental effects of the regime.

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Presentation by Andrew Schwartfigure, Pierce College, WA

2. CRUEL FICTIONS,
CRUEL REALITIES
◦ Series of short stories by:
◦ Gloria Artigas
◦ Maria Eugenia Lorenzini
◦ Andrea Maturana
◦ (all Chilean authors)
◦ Translated by:
◦ Kathy S. Leonard

3. SHORT STORY
OVERVIEW
Gloria
Artigas
Corners of Smoke
Maria
Eugenia
Lorenzini
Bus Stop #46
Andrea
Maturana
Cradle Song
Out of Silence

4. HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The writers who wrote the series of short stories included
started their careers between the mid to late 1980’s and at the
latest 1991 from given bibliography's in the book. The stories in
the book by these Chilean Authors are mostly published after
the end of the dictatorship in 1990, though their careers began
during that time. As the dictatorship ended in 1990 Pinochet
remained as the commander and chief of the army until 1998.
the stories are very deeply invested in the lasting effects
mentally and physically of the dictatorship from 1990 to the late
1990’s rather than the events within the dictatorship.

5. POLITICAL CONTEXT
After the military takeover unemployment went from 3% to 18.7%, as
well as per capita social spending dropped to 63% of what it had been
before (Constable 223).
By late 1983 more than 100,000 weren’t paying their electricity bill, and
reported malnourished and disease ridden within lower classes
(Constable 225).
People believe the election on October 5th 1989 was Chiles now or never,
“for Chile, its today or never –Eduardo Acuna” (Constable 308).

6. THE CULTURAL CONTEXT
• Context aimed at post dictatorship human cruelty these stories are uncensored for
the most part and depict awful human interactions and feelings. This is how friends
and families felt after the dictatorship was voted out in 1989 as the power switched
over in 1990.
• “After the coup it was a normality to shut out the bad memories as if amnesia had
taken its toll” (Steve Stern). People often closed away bad memories and referred to
them as memory box you had to visit by choice with close friends or family
• The neoliberalism of Chile forced Chileans to work and keep their mouths shut,
which carried on as habit after the dictatorship in the matter that it left a lasting
impression on them and it was a way of living now (Allende 167).

7. GLORIA ARTIGAS
Retired professor from Universidad Technica del Estado, in Santiago
Chile
In her story “Corners of Smoke” she aimed to show the
cruel neglect within families and how it could ultimately be
more devastating than other types of abuse

8. MARIA EUGENIA LORENZINI
Studied Spanish Pedagogy at the university of Chile
And she currently is the director of The American School of Translators
and Interpreters in Santiago Chile
Her main inspirations came form feminist literature and her father who
wrote; “Presencia de nino”, “Caminante”, and “En Citrola a Canada”

9. • Born in Santiago Chile in 1969
• She started publishing her works in 1986
• She aimed to depict everyday obvious
depictions, not so obviously
• Her writing is strongly feminine and extremely
brief.
ANDREA
MANTURANA

10. THEMES
The book itself aimed bring light to human cruelty that was strongly apparent after
the coup
Human cruelty ranging from political personal and religious after the dictatorship
and how it left many people scarred and persistently oppressed
Within the given short stories from the Chilean authors the main themes were more
personal they were aimed in towards the life of the author(s). The stories didn’t
relate the effect of the dictatorship directly but the stories had key mood and
feelings the made the darkness of the dictatorship a lasting feeling

11. SHORT STORY POINT OF VIEW
Though its more than one author and more than one story
these short stories fall under a very specific first person
emotional connection. All the stories in the book are described
first hand from the narrator to help bring the connection to the
reader.

12. MOOD AND AMBIENCE
The mood from story to story changes but the authors in this book are really good
and making it seem as if the life they’re writing about is normal but as the story
progresses it shifts darker and darker making the story feel deeper than what it seems
from the outside. Except for one particular piece.
Silvia Diez Fierros’ Writing “The Sailors Wife” the story is quite dark but very sorrowful
after the narrators parents die in a tragic accident she is raised by her grandparents in
a huge house right on the water. And speaks of her grandparents life story and it
seems as though she is happy for them in a way that doesn’t add up through out the
story. Till the end the author writes “As she swam away, the moon reflected off the
scales of her beautiful fish tail.” which makes everything you thought about the story
a huge twist, even in the matter that this story is fiction, you don’t know that till the
very last sentence.

13. GLORIA ARTIGAS
CORNERS OF SMOKE
Plot
In the story the narrator is in a large house with her mom and dad and her aunt brings
groceries weekly. Her mom and dad sit in silence playing cards to acknowledge that one
another exist without speaking. Her dad would take smoke breaks and wonder the corridors
of the house and each day he became thinner and thinner, eventually he was so small “it
looked as though he could fit in a drawer” he died peacefully ready for his time to come he
just laid in his bed till there was no life left in him, after he died her mom began to get bigger
and bigger, her aunt moved in to provide her mom company with card games. But when she
wasn’t there her mom would wonder the halls and the whole house would creek immensely.
And the narrator would smoke her dads cigarettes she found laying in his drawers as the
smoke wondered the corners of the house he mom thought it was a spiteful old man
remaining in the house. her mom eventually died of a heart attack and after so it was just her
and her aunt. but within the house the corridors creaked and her smoking her dads cigarettes
made it feel like they never left at all

14. MARIA EUGENIA LORENZINI
BUS STOP #46
Plot
This story is the heart of the oppressed women, this is a very brief story of a working class
woman that is riding the bus. She is standing in line waiting for the bus she smells a man that
smells of cheap cologne. While on the bus she is left standing, and as people exit the bus she
complain of how awful smelling the fat lady is then as she leaves the smell of the cheap
cologne is back the author tells us that he is a man in his 50’s trying to impress younger
women and he does just that for our narrator. The writing in the story becomes more frantic
and flustered through the mind of the nervous narrator. She lets go of her hand hold to move
away from the man just as the bus turns she begins to fall and the man catches her she
immediately pulls the bell chord and gets off the bus out of pure anxiety and nervousness.
She goes back to the bus stop day and day again so that she may meet him again, but he
never shows up to bus stop #46 again. Though hard to decipher the core of the story was that
women who find themselves alone who do not fulfill the role given to them by society have
no true identity to society and this makes them a target for cruel and malicious attitudes

15. ANDREA MATURANA
CRADLE SONG
Plot
In the story there is a mother and her son Marco the story describes poverty in Chile the story
takes place at the very end of the dictatorship in early 1989. the story really gets a heart
tugging message across with lines like “now Marco, go to sleep my son, sleep, little one, so
you can forget your hunger for awhile” in the story at this time Marco is still very young and
being breast fed the author describes Marcos memory of the taste as watery bread as that’s
all she had eaten in the previous weeks. In the last paragraph of the story Marco is far older
and he reminisces of the breast milk and wishes he still had such luxury, the author writes
“then he stands up, feeling the marks from the stones on his legs, and walks toward her and
lifts without difficulty, since the only weight he had to carry was the weight of her memory”. It
gets across the cruelty of poverty and how she weighed absolutely nothing at the time of
death but her memory weighed down on him heavily. He says to her after she is dead,
“Mamita, now, the rats have left you, you wont be hungry anymore, you will be able to rest,
yes you will.” and it almost drives a notion of insanity as the lack of nutrition Marco has had
makes it seem as though he treats her as she is still living sleeping, but she isn’t.

16. ANDREA MATURANA
OUT OF SILENCE
Plot
In this short story the narrator speaks another person at first speaking to them of the several
time she offered to open the window and rebutting at herself the answer of course you don’t,
she continues with how if the window is open there is no need to fan yourself. Then the
writing becomes my scatted and rambled. The narrator begins talking to herself about the
debris filling the room and how she has a reason for keeping it and she has explained it to the
other person before but not directly, and she thinks it selfish because in reality she's telling to
hear it out loud for her own sake. Then she says “ today I will confess to you, once and for all,
and I beg you to forget it, that I put that fan there on purpose. From the beginning I painted it
on you, clinging to your hand, out of simple fear of having painted death itself on this canvas
and being forced to see you face.” in a sense she painted a fan over someone's face to no
have to see their face as they had already died, out of simple fear of having to continue to
look at them even after death

17. WORKS MENTIONED
• Constable, Pamela, and Arturo Valenzuela. A Nation of Enemies: Chile under
Pinochet. Norton, 1993.
• Stern, Steve J. Remembering Pinochets Chile: on the Eve of London, 1998.
Duke University Press, 2006.
• Allende, Isabel, and Margaret Sayers. Peden. My Invented Country: a Memoir.
Harper Perennial, 2008.
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_dictatorship_of_Chile_(1973–
1990)#Constitution_of_1980