Nightstand

“Purgatory,” by Raúl Zurita 

“Chilean poet Raúl Zurita explores the terrain of Chile’s Atacama Desert, the highest and driest desert on the planet. It is also where grieving mothers sift the sand for bone fragments of ‘disappeared’ children scattered by [Augusto] Pinochet’s regime. This translation of Zurita’s work deftly presents fragments of meaning that you, too, must sift to discover for yourself. The book is witness to the unconquerable dignity of human sentience regardless of brutality. It makes you shiver with its simple elegance.”