Before adapted to the stage, Widows was a political novel of disappearance, resistance and communal memory by Ariel Dorfman, author of Death and the Maiden.

Set in an unnamed village under military rule, Widows follows a group of women who gather at the riverbank as unidentified bodies begin to surface. Refusing silence and official denial, they insist on naming the dead and bearing witness.

Written in the aftermath of Latin American dictatorship, the novel blends allegory and realism to explore state violence, grief, and the quiet power of collective resistance. Dorfman’s prose is restrained and deliberate, allowing the political force of the story to emerge in a subtle way.  

For readers interested in Latin American literature, political fiction, Chilean history, dictatorship-era writing, and novels concerned with memory, disappearance and moral accountability.