A young girl goes mysteriously missing under Pinochet's military dictatorship. Nona Fernandez is a Chilean writer and actress. Born in 1971, she grew up under the brutal military dictatorship of General Pinochet. Her childhood experiences inform much of her 2013 novel, Space Invaders. It's the 1980s. Estrella González is a school girl who enjoys socialising with her little group of friends. She even writes some of them letters. Her father and uncle are connected to the Pinochet government. A clue to her father's dangerous job is his missing hand - it was blown off trying to diffuse a bomb. Now he wears a prosthetic one and keeps a cabinet of spare wooden hands. Estrella's friends avoid her house because of the ghoulish cabinet. The children play games at school, reenacting famous war scenes. They also like to play the video game, Space Invaders. The game becomes a metaphor for the violence and strange silence swirling around the children. When one of the children asks his teacher about politics, the teacher quickly changes the subject. Then one day, Estrella disappears. She simply doesn't turn up to school any more. As the children grow older, they ruminate on what could have happened to her. Narrated by many voices, including letters from Estrella herself, Space Invaders is both dreamy and unsettling. It describes a world of children's play, of school and visiting friends, but there is a sense of deep unease as unexplained murders and disappearances invade their innocent world. A carefully honed novel that expertly juggles its many different perspectives, creating a satisfying literary novel that examines childhood experiences under dictatorship. Space Invaders, by Nona Fernandez. Published by Daunt Books. Review by Chris Saliba Comments are closed.
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