Andrea Yaryura Clark Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Interview

Andrea Yaryura Clark discussed the traumatic background to her debut novel On a Night of a Thousand Stars, set during Argentina's Dirty War of the 1970s.

What kind of research did you do for On a Night of a Thousand Stars, and how long did the process take? What was your most surprising discovery?

My research dates back to when I was living in Buenos Aires in the late 1990s (the same era as Paloma and Franco's story in the novel). It began when a family friend, a human rights lawyer, told me about a group that was meeting weekly, whose members were children of the Disappeared. The children were now young adults, coming of age about twenty years after the 1976 military coup.

These gatherings, held at a Human Rights Center for Families of the Disappeared/Detained for Political Reasons, were under the umbrella of a recently-formed national organization known as HIJOS, which stands for "Hijos por la Identidad y la Justicia contra el Olvido y el Silencio" (Sons and Daughters for Identity and Justice Against Oblivion and Silence). I attended a few HIJOS meetings and, after gaining their trust, asked certain members of the group if I could document their stories. I initially envisioned making a documentary and filmed several of the subjects, both in interview settings and going about their daily lives. I also wrote a few drafts of creative nonfiction and even took a stab at a screenplay...