We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Tapestries of hope, threads of love: the arpillera movement in Chile, 1974-1994" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.
This book tells the story of ordinary women living in terror and extreme poverty under General Pinochets oppressive rule in Chile (19731989) and how their lives did and did not change following his reign. These women defied the military dictatorship by embroidering their sorrow on scraps of cloth, using needles and thread as one of the boldest means of popular protest and resistance in Latin America. The arpilleras they madepatchwork tapestries with scenes of everyday life and memorials to their disappeared relativeswere smuggled out of Chile and brought to the world the story of their fruitless searches in jails, morgues, government offices, and the tribunals of law for their husbands, brothers, and sons. Marjorie Agos?n, herself a native of and exile from Chile, has spent over twenty years interviewing the arpilleristas and following their work. She knows their stories intimately and knows, too, that not one of them has ever found a disappeared relative alive. Still, many of them maintain hope and continue to make their arpilleras. Even though the dictatorship ended in 1989 and democracy returned to Chile, no full account of the detained and disappeared has ever been offered. This book includes a history of the womens movement, testimonies from the women in their own words, and, for the first time, full-color plates of their beautiful, moving, and ultimately hopeful arpilleras. Anyone interested in the history of contemporary Latin America will want to read this powerful story. What the arpilleristas speak of in their gentle, agonizing fabrics must never be forgottenin Chile, and around the globe. This book is a guardian of memory, an important and lovely work of art that radiates social conscience and illuminates the struggle to survive.John Nichols
