Soviet Phantoms Vacation in Chile

What is one supposed to do when one’s own country points a gun to one’s temple? As the Moscow-born bilingual American author Maxim D. Shrayer travels in Chile with his American-born wife and daughters, phantoms of Shrayer’s Jewish-Soviet past keep standing in the path of his journey. It’s the winter of 2014-2015. The American travelers visit Pablo Neruda’s house-museum and the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago, vacation in the volcano district in Araucanía and also spend time in the coastal resort of Viña del Mar and the city of Valparaíso. Shrayer seeks to explain to his daughters how Chile’s failed, Soviet-supported Marxist experiment led to the U.S.-backed 1973 coup and the years of Pinochet’s junta. Filled with vibrant details and political insights, Shrayer’s travelogue explores the contradictions of being both a cosmopolitan and a patriot in the modern world.

About the Author

Maxim D. Shrayer, a bilingual author, scholar and translator, was born in Moscow in 1967 and immigrated to the United States in 1987. He has authored and edited over fifteen books in English and Russian. In 2012 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship. Shrayer teaches at Boston College.