"[A] quiet, powerful novel" of a young woman caught in the chaos of Argentina in the mid-1970s, when speaking against the government could mean death (Publishers Weekly). March 23, 1976. Berta watches horrified as her lover, a union organizer named Atilio, is thrown from a window to his death by soldiers. The next day, Colonel Jorge Rafael Videla stages a coup d'état and a military dictatorship takes control of Argentina. And even though she was never a part of Atilio's union efforts, Berta is on a list to be "disappeared." Fleeing to relatives in the countryside, she becomes part of the family she knows only from old photographs: Aunt Avelina, who blasts music from an old record player; Uncle Nepomuceno, who watches slugs slither in the garden every afternoon; and Uncle Javier, who sits in his tiny grocery store day and night. But soon enough, Berta realizes she must run even further to save her life-and those she has come to love. With a prose that is light yet penetrating, Gloria Lisé has written "a beautifully simple, poetic story of solidarity and love, with memorable characters painted in the tender strokes of a watercolor" (Luisa Valenzuela, author of Black Novel with Argentines).

Gloria Lisé is a lawyer, professor, and accomplished musician. She is the author of Con los Pies en el Escenario, a book based on her father's life. Lisé was 15 years old when a coup d'état overthrew Isabel Martínez de Perón's government in 1976 and a military junta took power.Alice Weldon is an associate professor of Spanish and co-director of the women's studies program at University of North Carolina-Asheville. Weldon has published literary criticism on Spanish American women writers and translations, including the novel Son of the Murdered Maid by Bolivian author Gaby Vallejo.