A literary icon in Chile and a major figure in the anti-Pinochet
resistance, Diamela Eltit gets renewed attention in the English language
in a novel of breakdowns. Holed up together, old, ill, and untethered
from the revolutionary action that defined them, a couple's bonds
dissolve in their loss of a child and their loss of belief in an idea.
What is there left to have faith in when the structures we built, and
the ones we succumbed to, no longer offer us any comfort or prospect of
salvation? 'Never Did the Fire will be a first-rate literary experience for any reader' -El Pais 'One of the greatest merits of Diamela Eltit's work is the way she narrates failure from the interior of her language' -Letras Libres