SOURCE: Lindstrom, Naomi. Review of In Case of Fire in a Foreign Land: New and Collected Poems from Two Languages, by Ariel Dorfman. World Literature Today 77, no. 2 (July-September 2003): 147-48.

In the following review, Lindstrom praises the poetry collected in In Case of Fire in a Foreign Land: New and Collected Poems from Two Languages, asserting that the volume presents “distinguished examples of both exile writing and what is sometimes categorized as ‘literature of human rights.’”

The Chilean Military Regime that began with the 1973 coup and lasted through the 1980s is well known for such practices as holding citizens in undisclosed locations, subjecting them to torture, and disposing of their bodies, while withholding information from relatives. The aftereffects of those years are still being felt in Chile, where the proceedings against the former dictator, General Augusto Pinochet, have been playing out slowly. A few creative intellectuals have become determined...