The Dancer and the Thief: A Novel

This "powerful, humane," prize-winning novel of politics, ballet, and a spectacular heist by a reluctant master thief and his eager young protégé, "conjures...a contemporary Santiago, Chile, where the memory of Pinochet's reign and the 'disappearing' of citizens still looms" ( ). With prisons overflowing in Chile, the president declares a general amnesty for all nonviolent criminals. Ángel Santiago, a youth determined to avenge abuse he received in jail, seeks out the notorious bank robber Nicolás Vergara Grey, whose front-page exploits won him a reputation he would rather leave behind. Their plan for an ambitious and daring robbery is complicated by the galvanizing presence of Victoria Ponce, a virtuosic dancer and high-school dropout whose father was a victim of the regime. Praised for his "ability to place a personal story in the context of a national upheaval and make it warm, funny and universal" ( ), Antonio Skármeta sets this exuberant love story against the backdrop of the new Chile, free from the Pinochet dictatorship but beholden to the perils of globalization. , which won Spain's prestigious Planeta Prize, is a remarkable new novel from one of South America's finest storytellers. Reading group guide included.