Flowers in the Desert

On September 11, 1973, with the backing of the U.S. government, General Augusto Pinochet overthrew the socialist government of Chilean president Salvador Allende. In the weeks that followed, thousands of ordinary citizens began to vanish from the cities and villages of Chile, taken from their homes, workplaces, and universities.

The “disappeared” included twenty-six men from the northern town of Calama. For seventeen years their wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters searched the Atacama desert, the driest place on each, digging with shovels under a scorching sun, until they finally found the mass grave containing the crushed remains of their loved ones.

Paula Allen documented their quest, and her mesmerising black and white photographs capture the courageous story of the women of Calama. Flowers in the Desert puts a human face on this dark period of history that affected not only Chile but much of Latin America and the world.