Galley Beggar Press scoops Garcia's novel set in Chile during Pinochet's regime

Galley Beggar Press has scooped Gonzalo C. Garcia’s second novel, Telenovela, set in Chile during Pinochet’s regime. 

Co-directors Sam Jordison and Eloise Millar acquired world rights directly from the author, and the book is scheduled for publication in the autumn 2024.

The synopsis says: "Set in Santiago towards the end of Pinochet’s dictatorship, Telenovela explores the secret lives of a family swept up in this dark period of Chile’s history – and who have also become complicit in some of its worst crimes."

Garcia was born in Santiago and spent his first years in Chile’s Colchagua Valley region, before moving to Switzerland and eventually to the UK. He is currently assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Warwick. We Are The End, his first novel, was published by Galley Beggar Press in 2017. 

Garcia said: "Chile’s recent Social Outburst and the ongoing battle for a new constitution fomented pre-existing political divisions which echo not only the still very present past, but current global divisions at large. I wanted to understand and question the purpose of stories in the context of political memory. I wanted to find a language for a divisive historical moment in Chile.”

Jordison added: "I’ve always loved Gonzalo’s writing, but this is something else again. It feels like the book he had to write – and we are lucky to be able to read it. Telenovela can be hilarious. It can be beautiful.

"It is full of love and kindness. But it’s also unsettling, unnerving and furious. It’s a lesson from the past and a warning for the future.”

Millar commented: “As well as being an important book with so much to say about this period in history, and our own times, Telenovela is also a work of consummate artistry. Gonzalo C. Ceron writes with all kinds of exciting formal innovations. Crucially, he also writes sympathetically. This book is human and humane."