The only story for young readers of the legendary Chilean songwriter and activist who became a symbol of peace amidst the brutality of Augusto Pinochet's regime.
On September 11, 1973, in Santiago de Chile, Augusto Pinochet took power and installed a dictatorship in place of the democratic government of President Salvador Allende. That day Victor Jara, a young songwriter and activist, poet and playwright is arrested and imprisoned with hundreds of other people in the Santiago stadium because of his association with the socialist opposition. His hands, so crucial to playing music, are broken by one of Pinochet's soldiers. He is executed in the stadium days later, but his protest songs will continue to resound to this day, as does his defiance in singing, "Venceremos," We Will Overcome, in the stadium.
Pinochet will die at an advanced age without having answered for his crimes that were committed in an effort to crush dissent. But we celebrate the brave and defiant artists and activists like Victor Jara who help us to remember our humanity in the face of oppressive dictatorships.
There have always been people who said NO to what they considered unjust and unfair. They Said No is an historical fiction series for younger readers of protestors, activists, poets, revolutionaries and other brave changemakers from around the world that emphasizes the importance of standing up for what you know is right.
RUTH DIVER was head of Comparative Literature at the University of Auckland until 2014. She is the author of Écrivains Russes, Enfants Français (Honoré Champion, 2013) and has published research on translingual literature. A bilingual translator French/English, she also translates from German and Russian. She won two 2018 French Voices Awards for her translations of Marx and the Doll by Maryam Madjidi, and Titus Did Not Love Berenice by Nathalie Azoulai. She also won Asymptote’s 2016 Close Approximations fiction prize for her translation of extracts of Maraudes, by Sophie Pujas. Ruth collaborated with Ros Schwarz in the translation of The Reader on the 6.27 by Jean-Paul Didierlaurent (Waterstones Book of the Month, May 2016) for which she translated the Alexandrine verse. She recently translated Adélaïde Bon’s The Little Girl on the Ice Floe and Emmanuelle Bayamack-Tam's Arcadia.
