:quality(85)//cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/infobae/AALGLFBWBFG33JK7HTLRPSWFM4.jpg "A true story about the Chilean coup inspires new novel by Patricia Stambuk 1")
Preceded by difficult historical documentation, the Chilean writer and journalist Patricia Stambouk ventured to piece together unknown stories as part of the 1973 coup in your country. His work has been condensed into the pages of The lighthouse keeper at the end of the world (Catalonia), a text throughout a series of characters and events that occurred in thStrait of Magellan (Chile) during this period of conflict.
To do this, he reconstructs the history of Jose Raul Rodrigueza lighthouse keeper who does his work in the eastterritory of magellan and in the rValparaiso region; a story he retrieves from files and documents, but also through a series of interviews.
“It is a testimony to the personal experience of a man isolated in a corner of the world, who faces the radical change of the internal coexistence of his institution with each exit from one lighthouse to another. She was no longer the one she had known until then. There was a political control that favored denunciations, and since José came from a left-wing family, his rejection of these changes was inevitable,” said Patricia Stambuk in an interview with The third.
In The lighthouse keeper at the end of the world, the writer pours all his experience as a journalist and narrator, to trap the reader in the universe of lighthouse keepers, while guiding him through the scenarios and the particular life of those who carry out this activity. From the first moment, Stambuk is responsible for presenting the story through the first person and the eyes of its protagonist.
Rodriguez is responsible for recounting his life journey as a lighthouse keeper, 1961in the splendor of his active years and until his retirement in the year of 1985. Throughout the pages, the Chilean writer manages to arouse an interest in natural landscapes through the particularities and the living environment of a lighthouse keeper.
The writer captures in this novel not only the story of the lighthouse keeper, but also leaves a trace of the passion and soul that this man gave to the profession. But the testimony of Rodriguez as a protagonist gives him the opportunity to Stambuk to reconstruct and measure the hard and solitary life led by these militiamen as Chile’s political future was taking shape.
“The commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the voyage of Hernando de Magallanes through the South Bio-Oceanic Channel was approaching and they told me about José Rodríguez because of his relationship with the strait, as a lighthouse keeper; but we entered quarantine and many commemoration-related activities came to me, so I had to postpone the project. Years later, his American son-in-law insisted that I meet him and a first conversation with José, via zoom, was enough to appreciate his experience, his memory and his narrative skills”, Patricia Stambuk.
The writer expressed interest in the indigenous peoples of Chile. After some accounts of the visits of the Kawésqar natives to the lighthouse and others of the Chilote navigators, the need arose to write about these lost men in the middle of the 20th century. In the novel, the author goes through some of the most significant Chilean episodes of the dimension of Joseph as a Navy non-commissioned officer in charge of the lighthouse of the Strait of Magellan.
Patricia Stambouk He has a large list of publications, through which he gave them access to untold stories from cultures such as the Yagan or the Rapanui. Rosa Yagán, guest teacherIt is considered his masterpiece. In 2022, the author assumed the position of deputy director of the Chilean Academy of the Language. She is also the founder of Center for Strait of Magellan Studies.
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