Atacama: the salty desert as a literary theme in Hernán Rivera Letelier

Abstract

Throughout his work, Hernán Rivera Letelier (Talca, Chile, 1950) describes the life in the Great North of Chile in the course of several decades of the XXth century, specifically in the Desert of Atacama. The world in Atacama’s nitrate fields is the world of the people that do not know another way of life, even though the offices and the camps may emulate an urban style based upon their architecture and their daily management, the destiny and worldview of the people is of isolation. However, the miners settled with their families on this region have learned to live in extreme conditions and, considering the literary device used by the author, their adaptation even comes with a sort of healthy resignation for the free time. The common theme throughout Rivera̕ s narrative work is the desolation and loneliness at that specific geographical space.