A Cross and a Star

Memoirs of a Jewish Girl in Chile

Marjorie Agosín, Celeste Kostopulos-Cooperman, Celeste Kostopulos-Cooperman

• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9780826364135
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

In this classic memoir that explores the Nazi presence in the south of Chile after the war, Marjorie Agosín writes in the voice of her mother, Frida, who grew up as the daughter of European Jewish immigrants in Chile in the World War II era. Woven into the narrative are the stories of Frida's father, who had to leave Vienna in 1920 because he fell in love with a Christian cabaret dancer; of her paternal grandmother, who arrived in Chile later with a number tattooed on her arm; and of her great-grandmother from Odessa, who loved the Spanish language so much that she repeated its harmonious sounds even in her sleep. Agosín's A Cross and a Star is a moving testament to endurance and to the power of memory and words. This edition includes a collection of important new photographs, a new afterword by the author, and a foreword by Ruth Behar.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Family Alliances
• Images of My Youth
• Osorno
• Carmencita and the Kingdom of Adobe
• The Viennese Lady
• My Husband
• Epilogue
• Afterword