Translating the Soul: Essays

An engaging and provocative collection of personal narrative essays of great scope and insight, interweaving autobiograpy with themes of memory and exile. It explores identity in a new landscape and place through emigrant eyes and the memory of grandparents and parents who made Chile their home and yet never totally felt at home.



Translating the Soul reflects on the story of Marjorie Agosan's life, beginning with her family's roots in Odessa as well as Chile. Agosan shares her life in Chile, meeting, as a young girl, Pablo Neruda on Isla Negra, who inspired her to be a poet. And her other influences, such as Gabriela Mistral. Chile was their family's love, their universe, but following Pinochet's rise to Power in Chile in the 1970's her family moved to Atlanta, Georgia where her father could teach. Her narrative includes her thoughts and work on behalf of the Disappeared in Chile. The essays are enlivened with the images, of award winning Chilean photographer, Samuel Shats, many of which were shot for this book.