Return from sleeplessness

After seven years in exile, an Argentinian writer flies back and records his feelings as he discovers the strangeness and familiarity of Buenos Aires In October 1983, Argentina held presidential and parliamentary elections after more than seven years of military dictatorship. Since 1976, many thousands of Argentinians have been forced into exile by the repressive policies of the military ‘Process of National Re-organisation’. Among these was the novelist Osvaldo Soriano, whose two books Triste, Solitario y Final and No Habrá más Penas ni Olvido were first published in France (in 1978 and 1980). The military regime in Argentina began to crumble after the disastrous 1982 Malvinas/Falklands adventure and the blatant failure of their economic management. As the democratic forces regrouped for the elections, Soriano, like many other exiles, returned to discover a familiar but strange Argentina, struggling to overcome the nightmares of the previous seven years.