The Sounds of Summer
(Las vocales del verano)

The winter retreat of a woman to a Valdivian beach gives rise to a story full of beauty and mystery.

A woman decides to retreat for a while to reflect upon her life and to write a text that no one knows anything about. That’s why she decides to go, in the middle of winter, to an old family house on a southern beach where, as a child, she spent her summers. With the leisure and contemplation available by the sea, she thinks of some ex-lovers and some of those who have passed away, in particular her father and the uncertain history they shared.

One morning she walks around the ghostly resort looking for firewood and meets a man who unexpectedly takes her back to her childhood years, as the fog and the coastal landscape connects her with a more remote past: the indigenous prehistory of southern Chile, the immemorial geological origin of those imposing territories.

«In Antonia Torres’ poetry there is a discernible voice, a voice that does not always sing because it prefers to murmur and even when it says «I» it seems that it speaks collectively».   Alejandro Zambra