FALSA CALMA

The "false calm" referred to in the title is Patagonia, an immense cold, ghostly region in which time seems to have come to a permanent halt. María Sonis Cristoff was born in Trelew, one of the largest Patagonian cities, but moved at an early age to Buenos Aires. Patagonia has been for her a distant, forgotten place, wrapped in silence and mysteries. False Calm is the documentation of her return. In these pages Patagonia is not a picture-postcard land, but the point of entry to a nightmare. With her acute gaze and humour, Cristoff becomes an antenna for people excluded from state policies, imprisoned in their isolation and swamped by a hostile environment littered with oil wells; characters "who don't know what to expect, who are turned inwards…"