Allende / Pinochet: Two Political Dramas

by Peter Turton

This second publication of Peter Turton with CBH Books comprises two plays, Allende and Pinochet, both in three acts. Allende begins with Salvador Allende's presidential election victory in Chile in September 1970, and ends with the bloody Pinochet-led coup d'état of September 11 1973. The author uses irony and humour to tell the story of the truncated Allende administration, highlighting the deep divisions in Chilean society around Allende's peaceful road to socialism. Pinochet begins where Allende ends, at the smoldering La Moneda presidential palace on the day of the coup. The three acts tell the grim story of the 17-year Pinochet regime, and that of his arrest in London in 1998 and the resulting legal and political wrangles as to whether he should face trial in Europe, in the knowledge of the unlikelihood of his being brought to justice in Chile. In a certain sense, neither of these two plays could have been written without the other, and for this reason they are published together in the same book.

180 pages, Paperback

First published March 21, 2007