About Walks Through Memories of Oblivion by Fernando A. Torres
A collection of short stories; a creative none-fiction narrative based on true events. Situations, rescued from my memory when I was arrested at eighteen years of age, during the military regime that overthrew democracy and established a brutal dictatorship (1973-90) in Chile, my homeland. Although this collection has as a backdrop, a critical political event, the stories are not about politics. These stories are personal; the flesh and bones behind the young and restless student that I was once; about how this young man faces prison and the experiences among other political and common prisoners. More than 30 stories ranging from my arrest until my expulsion into exile. In some of them I describe the mental disorders: how sanity finds its limits in confinement; the paradoxical everyday life inside the prison; others tell the horror of torture and death, another is the story of a woman, my mother, searching for her missing son. I also have a couple of stories about my exile in Berkeley, California. There is a good game of dark humor and tales of subtle and small victories of the human endurance and perseverance. The stories touch well-timed social justice issues and themes relevant to those readers interested in Latin America’s so-called magical realism, psychology of the victims of political repression, solidarity movements, or for general readers interested in a good story with an unpredictable end.
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Author Bio:
Fernando A. Torres is a California-based freelance journalist, short-story writer, musician and poet. After being a political prisoner in 1977, Torres was expelled from Chile by the military dictatorship and came to the US as a political refugee. In California He was a founding member of the musical group Grupo Raiz, and have collaborated with many international musicians such as David Byrne, Holly Near and Pete Seeger. In 2018 his story Head Stew was selected as The Best New Writing 2018 by Hopewell Publications. In 2019, Scenes of Exile, a story based on Torres’ exile, was published by The Bare Life Review Magazine, a journal of Immigrant and Refugees Literature. Other literary works by Mr. Torres have been published by Somos en Escrito Weebly; by Nobrow Fiction (2020); and by Lonely Cryptid Media (2020). As a freelance journalist, Torres collaborates with various SF Bay Area news outlets including Radio Bilingue, La Opinión de la Bahia, and El Tecolote SF newspaper. He is also an editor and correspondent for the Latin American web magazine Dilemas.cl, editor of the blog magazine LatinOpen, and member of the Advisory Board of ExposeFacts.org, and of the review panel of The Intrepid News Fund. In 2022, his debut book Walks Through Memories of Oblivion; Flashbacks from a former political prisoner; short Stories & Essays about resistance, prison and exile, was published in English by Unsolicited Press in Oregon and in Spanish, Paisajes desde el Olvido Memorias de un ex-prisionero político by Pampa Negra Ediciones in Chile. fernandotorreswriter@yahoo.com