Imagining Argentina

The horror of the Junta rule in Argentina is the subject of this novel which combines reality and fiction.;The author uses an imaginary character, Carlos Rueda who has a gift for storytelling and an ability to forsee future happenings with unerring precision. People come to Carlos's garden on the Calle Cordova where he tells the stories of the "disappeared" - the innocents snatched away in green Ford Falcons to be raped, tortured, or worse.;In the Plaza de Mayo, mothers bear placards with photographs of the "disappeared" in view of General Guzman at his window, who claims their grievances are imagined. Carlos however, supports them in their vigil, for his wife, too, is missing.;The combination of this vigil and the storyteller in Calle Cordova whose imagination wages war with the General's is the major factor that the author puts forward as being so dangerous to the regime: imagination which the Generals could not violate and which allowed Argentina to survive.