Soviet Phantoms Vacation in Chile
A Family Travelogue
Soviet Phantoms
Vacation in Chile:
A Family Travelogue
by Maxim D. Shrayer
©2019
eBook
82 pages
Available from Amazon,
iTunes, and other booksellers.
What 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. During the winter of 2014-15, the American travelers visit Pablo Neruda's house-museum and the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago, visit the volcano district in Araucanía, and 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 1973 U.S.-backed 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.
