Sehnsucht nach der Wüste

After years of silence, Rebeca wants to fulfill her great-aunt Peggy's last wish, who lives in England: she is to scatter Peggy's ashes at the place of her childhood, in a now non-existent nitrate settlement in the middle of the Atacama Desert. The surprising request awakens an unexpected nostalgia in Rebeca for her own childhood, marked by the inexplicable disappearance of her mother, her father's attempts to teach her proper behavior, and the strong presence of her eccentric great-aunt. Rebeca discovers her great-aunt's youth in a privileged employee family at the end of the nitrate boom through a box full of letters addressed to a mysterious Dora, who vanished from her life after a tragic accident. "It is better to preserve memories. Life does not wait. One must take what one can and run." Nostalgia del desierto is a journey without return and through time, starting from the disappearance of the nitrate industry and its brutal reality, the reconstitution of a social clan that experienced glorious, romantic times and is now forgotten. Above all, Nostalgia del desierto tells the story of three women who stand alone in life in a tender, poetic, and evocative manner. Brown writes with restraint, creating dark atmospheres with remarkable naturalness, shifting focus, portraying characters, and describing their intimate world with great precision. Nostalgia del desierto is a profound study of uprooted people who hide their loneliness.