Agosín's poetic touch will engage undergraduate students in the humanities and social sciences as well as general readers.

Hispanic American Historical Review

By interweaving bleak storytelling with powerful, colorful depictions of cloth figures standing against a message of 'No a la tortura' or chained together in protest against congressional policy, the complete and tragic story takes on physical and psychological dimensions.

ASG Notions

To have these arpilleras reproduced in combination with Marjorie Agosín's compassionate and historical analysis in a new and updated edition is a gift to all those who continue in the struggle for human rights, social justice, and peace. It is also a vital testimonial to women's history, resistance, and culture in Chile and in all of Latin America.

Bettina Aptheker, University of California, Santa Cruz

Hope and love, yes, but a fierce and tenacious witness as well, and an insistence on spare truth in the face of brute power: truth armored in a heartrending beauty. With grace and precision, poet Marjorie Agosin sings this suite of Latin American variations on the epics of Penelope's steadfast devotion and Antigone's defiant resolve.

Lawrence Weschler, New York University; author of A Miracle, A Universe: Settling Accounts with Torturers

This book should be put in the hands of every student in America, North and South, so all can learn how a culture of fear turned Chile into a well of suffering under Pinochet. Marjorie Agosín's Tapestries of Hope is a shiva made of words, a sacred act of mourning and memory, at once beautiful and heartbreaking. By collecting the stories of the women in Chile who wove their sadness into works of art using the torn clothes of the disappeared, Agosín lets us grieve for those who are lost. At the same time, we join the brave makers of the arpilleras in defying the brutal torturers who attempted to erase the names of their loved ones from history. I thank Marjorie Agosín with all my heart for the gift of this book. It is a gift for all humanity, as great books always are.

Ruth Behar, University of Michigan

For twenty years after General Pinochet took power in Chile, a group of arpilleristas protested government brutality by sewing simple and exquisite tapestries in memory of their dead, their tortured, their disappeared loved ones. Almost alone these brave women kept a vigil against the harsh regime by creating an art that is special to their sad and beautiful country. What the arpilleristas speak of in their gentle, agonizing fabrics must never be forgotten—in Chile, and around the globe. This book is a guardian of memory, an important and lonely work of art that radiates social conscience and illuminates the struggle to survive.

John Nichols