Ilse’s memories of Colonia Dignidad

About the book

„These are the memoirs that Ilse, my adoptive mother, wrote after the arrest of Paul Schäfer, the founder of Colonia Dignidad in southern Chile. She wrote them in German and I translated them into Spanish. I have tried to preserve the form of her simple words, as a childlike and innocent woman who was only given four years of primary education during the decades she lived as a prisoner of the sect in this concentration camp.
Ilse died in January 2010 and fought for justice until the last months of her life. So that one day the gates of Colonia Dignidad (Villa Baviera) will be closed.“

So begins this novel, which is the result of in-depth research into a life and its dramatic setting. It is set in Colonia Dignidad, which was founded in Chile in the 1960s by Paul Schäfer, a former member of the Hitler Youth. As head of the colony, Schäfer applied National Socialist practices to which he lent a religious character. In the long years of his work, he amassed a great deal of power and money and was a close associate of Augusto Pinochet, with the support of the German government.

Only a few managed to escape from the settlement of German „colonos“ in Chile and denounce the atrocities, like the protagonist of this story. Emma Sepúlveda Pulvirenti transports the reader into this dark micro-world with unrivalled mastery. Her story, based on true events, moves and challenges us in its description of individual freedom and the stigmatisation of gender characteristics.

Link to buy the book

Dossier on Colonia Dignidad: „One of the biggest human rights crimes with German involvement“

About the author

Born in Argentina, Chile is Emma Sepúlveda Pulvirenti ’s adopted country, and she is an American through the trials and tribulations of life. She has received numerous awards for her literary work and her commitment to the rights of Latinos in the USA. In 1994, she was the first Latina to run for the Nevada Senate. Three of her most recent books(Gringosincracias, Setenta días de noche and Historia de un invisible) were honoured with the Latino Book Award.

She has been honoured with many prizes: Thorton for Peace; GEMS Woman of the Year in Literature; Carolyn Kizer in Poetry; Silver Pen in Literature and the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame, given to the most distinguished writers, Emma being the first Latina to receive this honour. In 2009, she was appointed by the US government to the committee establishing the first Latino Museum in Washington DC. In 2014, President Barack Obama appointed her to the Fulbright International Committee in the US, the first Latina to be appointed to this prestigious commission.

Emma is an Emeritus Endowed Professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, currently writing from Valencia, Spain.

Translator

Mathias Sasse, born in Chonju (South Korea), came to Germany at the age of four. After arriving in Germany, he and his family moved to the Ruhr region. After completing his doctoral studies, Sasse now works as a freelance translator and has already self-published three novels under a pseudonym. In 2020, he received a scholarship from the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia for the translation of Juan García Ponce’s short stories, and in 2021 and 2022 he received a scholarship for the translation of two novels by Melacio Castro Mendoza.

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