Chilco: A Novel

Summary

Chilco was supposed to be an Eden for Marina and Pascale. But something seems amiss on the island. There is a smell of rot in the air that only Marina can detect, and she is visited by strange, unsettling dreams.

The couple has escaped to Chilco from the crumbling ruins of Capital City, a place scarred by centuries of colonialism and now roiled by revolution. But as they try to start life anew here, far from the city, strange rifts open in their relationship, and they wonder if they have merely entered a lush, distorted version of what they fled.

In Chilco, Daniela Catrileo writes a paean to the people and places that suffer in the wake of empire. As Pascale and Marina battle the oppressive weight of their shared histories, their fierce and vivid struggle reaffirms that love, friendship, and beauty can endure in a broken world.

“An anti-parable of colonialism—welcoming, rough, sweet, and painful.”—Carmen Boullosa, author of The Book of Eve