Why a Booktrail?
1950s onwards: A tango between two very different cultures and the two countries come to life with the beautiful descriptions of the two landscapes.
Swedish Tango
What you need to know before your trail
Octavio Ribeiro is a rising movie star in Chile who is asked by the poet
Pablo Neruda to work for the presidential campaign of Salvador Allende.
Soon, Octavio and his family are exposed to the ruthless tactics of Allende’s political rival, General Augusto Pinochet. They escape to political exile in Sweden, where another couple – Samuel and Kaija Rudin – are also living as expatriates. Both couples must try to confront the secrets of the past, but in this new land, old consequences and old secrets could soon come to the surface.
Travel Guide
The mix of Chile and Sweden is an interesting one since as events in the novel depict, no two countries could have been more different from each other as these two.
Chile
The political upheaval of Allende’s Chile compared with the relative calmness of Sweden emphasizes the contrasts between the two. For this is a tale of escape of relationships, survivors guilt and other secrets. Of course having to flee to another land brings problems and situations unique to the couples in the novel.
Chilean politics in the 1960’s – 1970’s is hard to read about at times such was the brutality of the regime but fascinating for its detail here
Sweden
The life of immigrants in Sweden – thousands Finnish refugees came to sweden during the war and not al of them returned. Katja was one of them. A real historic event that is not well known out side of Sweden perhaps but one which helps explain the decisions and lives of the people living there. How those who flee adapt to their new homeland
“More than 23 years had passed before Salome could listen to music without being reminded of the terror it had once caused her.”
Finland
Chile and Sweden are however the main backdrops, they are not the only ones since we also visit Finland and witness the heartbreaking fate of the children there, people who have fled pre war France. These landscapes are ones of chaos, of war time and ultimately displaced people whose lives are turned upside down.
From each of the landscapes we flit back and forth and take up the story of the two couples across the decades. A picture forms of the changing nature of war, the people at its centre and how they cope and deal with the changing situations
Booktrail Boarding Pass Information: Swedish Tango
Guide: Alyson Richman Destination: Chile, Sweden Departure Time: 1950s onwards
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