Voyager: Constellations of Memory

Description

One of the world's foremost spots for astronomical observation, the Atacama Desert in Chile is also where, in October 1973, twenty-six people were executed by Pinochet's Caravan of Death. Decades on, a petition gathers for a constellation's stars to be dedicated to them. Nona Fernndez is made a god-mother to Mario Argelles Toro, star HD89353, and asked to write a message to his family. When her own mother begins to suffer from fainting spells, Fernndez accompanies her to neurological examinations. There, the mapping of her mother's brain activity - groups of neurons glowing and sparking on screen - calls to mind the night sky, as memories light up into a complex stellar tapestry. Weaving together the narrative of her mother's illness with stories of the cosmos and of her country, Fernndez braids astronomy and astrology, neuroscience and memory, family history and national history into an intensely imagined autobiographical work. A profound reckoning with the past, Voyager is a refusal to allow lives to be forgotten and truths inconvenient to those in power erased. It confirms Nona Fernndez as one of the great chroniclers of our time.

Nona Fernndez was born in Santiago, Chile. She is an ac-tress and writer, and has published two plays, a collection of short stories, and six novels, including Space Invaders and The Twilight Zone, which was awarded the Sor Juana Ins de la Cruz Prize.

Praise for Space Invaders: 'A small jewel of a book . . . Fernndez's pic-turesque language and dream-like atmosphere is well worth being invaded by. A book to slip in the pocket to read and reread.' - Patti Smith 'Nona Fernndez has developed a reputation for composing unsettling por-traits of life during Chile's brutal military dictatorship, with stories that venture beyond the stiff and incomplete histories recorded by truth and rec-onciliation commissions.' - New York Magazine