The book gathers interviews with former Allende ministers, sexual dissidence activists, artists and people linked to the defence of human rights. It also includes photographs and archival material such as letters from disappeared detainees, family albums and even drawings of torture centres.
By Axel Indey
In the context of the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the coup d’état, a group of journalists and photographers put together a book that collects 50 unpublished stories of Chilean citizens whose lives were affected by the breakdown of democracy in our country. The book is entitled “Vidas que cambiaron de golpe” (“Lives that changed after the coup”) and will be on sale this August.
It is a project that combines chronicles, photographs and archival material, such as letters from disappeared detainees, family albums and even drawings of torture centres made by the detainees. The interviews included in the book are divided into three crucial periods: Popular Unity, 11 September 1973 and the civil-military dictatorship.
“Here the lives and experiences of our interviewees are brought to light. Where they were born, how they grew up, what they did, whether they were militant or not, etc.,” says Alexis Polo, one of the book’s authors.
“They were people who fought, who believed in building a different society. Their lives did not begin on 11 September, their lives and experiences were forged in voluntary work, in cultural events, in demonstrations in favour of the government. For us it was fundamental to rescue that,” he adds.
According to its authors, one of the pillars of the book is the diversity of the interviews that comprise it: the work includes accounts by former Allende ministers, activists from the Unidad Popular parties, the MIR, people linked to the defence of human rights, relatives of the executed and disappeared, sexual dissidence activists, exiles, musicians, artists and actors.
To find out more about the project and the publication of the book, you can follow the initiative on social networks. Here are the links to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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