Clandestine Stories

Description

This graphic memoir, written and illustrated by siblings Ariel and Sol Rojas Lizana, tells the clandestine stories of a family caught up in the frictions of history and politics during the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile (1973-1990). Their stories began on September 11, 1973 – this hemisphere’s first 9/11 – when Chile’s Armed Forces, with support from the Nixon administration, joined with local police to overthrow Chile’s democratically elected president Salvador Allende. This is the story of a dictatorship forcing lives into the realm of the clandestine, and it is a story of resistance.

Ariel and Sol, only 14 and 10 years old in 1973, lived as part of an underground cell of members of the armed militant group MIR (Revolutionary Left Movement). MIR believed in confronting the military dictatorship using armed guerrilla combat and in 1973 had about 10,000 members. As the authors note, nearly 80% of MIR’s leadership fell victim to the dictatorship’s persecution. The clandestine memories that Ariel and Sol share in this book give a place for the voices of children and adolescents to be heard amongst the clash of economic and political ideologies. Their memoir reveals how children are affected by, and participate in, historical events but often are left outside of the historical record.

Their story is now available for the first time in English. These clandestine stories of survival, solidarity, doubt, and hope join a lineage of graphic memoirs – along with titles such as Maus, Persepolis, and March – that tell the personal experiences of those who have lived through some of the most turbulent times of the 20th century. In moments of political division and polarization, books such as Clandestine Stories can help to show that humanity is more than political labels, and that art can serve as a means of revealing the human aspect that is often lost behind fear and hatred.