Two Bodies is a text that obliquely intersects Chilean national history and the personal history of Esteban, stories that circle graves and bodies and that end up running into each other at a red letter. Fragments of events in the country fully immersed in the Pinochet prosecution are united by the routine of an alienated physical therapist who mysteriously links objects, people and animals. It is a tense story with a disturbing atmosphere, where objects appear like judgments: a white lab coat, a plastic bag, a sandal, a halter, mealybugs, bottles, fingernails, a pamphlet in the street, a photograph, a circular phrase, a spade digging a hole, a mound in the yard. Lime, earth and stones circle around the streets where traces of bodies that once were there are recorded. The characters in this novel utter incomplete sentences, they know fragments of the big picture, nobody wants to impose a story because the narration occurs through them, but finally two bodies elaborate the discourse of this text. Two Bodies is an unsettling story that circles the streets of Santiago, in the outdoors, in the backyards of the houses, in the hospitals, on the roadways. Esteban, its cold protagonist, is a sleeping conscience who confronts a complicit silence with the Senator (Augusto Pinochet) in the dark glasses. Esteban goes from being a distant physical therapist in a white lab coat to a mysterious man who travels dirt roads, his automobile filled with empty bottles. He knows about the trials, about the weight of objects, about the evidence, this is why his life passes around sandals, flowerpots with mealybugs, plastic bags, a photograph, a pamphlet. Occasionally, during his getaway, he sneaks a look at the Dictator in London, or he hears his sentence on a far-off radio, and he knows what this signifies, he knows that something connects them but he continues to escape and hide. Two Bodies is an intriguing political, tangential text with a disgruntled tone, that, with its minimalist style, shows us the horror, the guilt, the crime, the mental anguish, the vulnerability of bodies. There is no crime without bodies, there is no guilt without bodies, there is no horror without bodies. And Esteban, the disturbed protagonist of this novel, knows that. He knows, too, the Senator who is in London and who is now mentioned on television and on the radio. They both avert their eyes in order to continue committing and covering up their crimes in which the evidence appears and disappears: tire tracks on dirt roads, mounds of dirt in the yard, lime, plastic bags, loose sandals, empty bottles, clean lab coats. In this political story the bodies of the children and animals are reduced, they disappear in a rarified atmosphere where things occur without explanation, in a mysterious fashion, but which suggest to us that something strange is taking place. And Esteban moves from one side to the other, from the hospital with patients, to the apartment of his father who has Alzheimer's, to the backyard of his house, to the neighboring veterinarian, to the outskirts of the city. It is a disturbing trajectory, a hunt, an escape and in the end the bodies will speak.
About the Author: Nicolás Poblete was born in Santiago de Chile in 1971. He is a full-time professor at the Universidad Chileno-Británica de Cultura, as well as Coordinator of the British Studies Area. Additionally he frequently contributes to several scholarly publications in the way of short stories, essays on scholarly topics and book reviews as a part of his very productive career. Dr. Poblete received his Masters and PhD from Washington University in St. Louis, where he also did a post-doctoral research project on the Latin American Gothic novel. He has received a number of honors and rewards during the past ten years, including fellowships for his writing as well as teaching awards.