A Mapuche Writer Renders Life in Urban Chile
A new short story collection by Daniela Catrileo follows Mapuche youth through the cramped blocks and slow violence of Santiago.
This article is adapted from AQ’s special report on Latin America's demographic transformation “The word piñen comes from Mapudungun and refers to dust or grime stuck to the skin.” This note opens the new short story collection Piñen by Daniela Catrileo, a Mapuche writer from Chile. The four stories that follow feature characters dealing with piñen as the nexus of body and place, and the grimy inescapability of both. In Chile, the word can be used pejoratively against those of lower class, but here it is merely descriptive: It is what happens to bodies as they occupy the...
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