Resurgence as a metaphor for Indigenous resilience

By Harish

Towards the end of the novel Chilco, three colossal blue whales, presumed to be extinct, appear in the sea near the titular fictional island. The novel treats this resurgence as a metaphor for Indigenous resilience and reclamation of identity. But the point of  view of the novel is unique from several such narratives because it refuses to romanticize indigeneity. It presents capitalist globalism and highly exclusive nativism as two sides of a coin, equally oppressive and decadent.

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The novel follows Mari, a museum archivist from a crumbling capitalist city plagued by poverty, climate decay, and social unrest. Her partner Pascale desperately wants to return to the ancestral island of Chilco, the last bastion that resisted colonial invasion for decades. They eventually migrate to the island with their dog Pachakuti, but Mari faces profound difficulties in adapting to the island life and her status as an outsider. The alienation that she encounters on the island affects her life and even sanity.

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Chilean poet Daniela Catrileo conceived Chilco as a long poem. But it eventually evolved into her debut novel. When seen from this context, one can easily identify the remnants of poetry in the narrative. Vivid imagery, lyrical and rhythmic prose, non-linear plot, and fragmented narration are very clear markers of its origin. The novel was originally published in 2013 in the Spanish language. The English translation by Jacob Edelstein was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2025.

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The novel has dense, sensory, and introspective prose narrated in first-person by its protagonist, Mari. It proceeds like a fever dream of a depressed mind, flitting back and forth through ideas, space, and time. Though it may feel rambling, the writer ties up the entire narrative firmly by the end. The novel is solidly fixed in the linguistic space of its protagonist, who is a mestizo (of mixed identity), and contains many indigenous words of the Mapudungun and Quechua languages. The translator has retained them as they are, which helps in rooting the narrative.

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One example is Pachakuti, the name of the pet dog. It is a Quechua term that marks the cataclysmic shift that transforms the world. The word is emblematic of the Native American belief of a cyclical time, contrasting the Western notion of a linear one. In the novel Pachakuti is a mongrel, mirroring the mestizo identity of Mari and the sexual orientation of Pascale. In a thematic sense, the novel is about a world in a dilemma after the failure of colonialism and it proposes a radical transformation from notions of purity to inclusive collectivism.

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In the novel two separate landmasses are contrasted. The capital city in the mainland is a declining colonial behemoth, exploited to its core and left to decay by the market forces. The rebellion by the people has turned futile, and the land is being appropriated by unexplained sinkholes. In stark contrast is the seemingly idyllic island of Chilco, a natural paradise that resisted colonial powers but is as inconsiderate as the mainland in its tribalistic outlooks, mirroring the approach of the capitalist masters.

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The two main characters of the novel also reflect this contrast. Mari has grown up in the city, among the working class, struggling for survival. She is fatherless, brought up by her grandmother, the strong matriarch; her mother; and her aunt. Pascale is from Chilco, where life is more laid back and ritualistic. Growing up motherless, Pascale aspired to travel the seas but finally ended up in the capital.

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Mari's mestizo identity is due to her fatherlessness, which makes it difficult to ascribe a singular indigeneity, like Pascale. The environment in which she grew, under three women, makes her reject patriarchal dependencies. Pascale's absent mother is implied as a white woman. Still, Pascale is considered racially pure, as ancestry is defined in paternal lines. For Pascale, the motherlessness manifests as rejection of clear gender borders, something we ourselves recognize quite late in the novel through cleverly embedded clues.

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The central motif of Chilco is the sea. The sea separates the mainland from the island. Pascale takes Mari to Chilco by crossing the sea. In the landlocked capital, the sea is a desire, a temptation, that pulls Pascale towards it. When the protagonists meet for the first time, it's in the background of a whale skeleton in the museum where Mari works. This unites the motif with the central theme of the novel and foreshadows the climax. By seeing the enthusiasm of Pascale, Mari creates a Chilco Archive as a gift. The archive is presented to us as excerpts interrupting the main chapters. They functions as markers familiarizing us with the contested history of Chilco.

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In Chilco, the sea is an encircling prison that excludes Mari from the languages and rituals of the island. When the blue whales return from extinction, we realize that the fluid sea is in fact the materialization of Pachakuti. In that moment, the dualities are breached, revealing that transformation is not exclusion or oppression but mutuality and unification of binaries.

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Mari's matriarchal grandmother is a towering figure in the novel. Even though we see her confining Mari and dictating her life choices, she exemplifies resourcefulness. She constantly helps and supports others around her. She becomes a combining force that unifies her family and the community even when, all around her, society breaks down into chaos.

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It is interesting to note that she, like the sea, unites the binaries. In the capitalist society, we find her food stall surviving not by exploitation but through discipline and hard work. She resists racial identification with nationalism ("Peruvian, not Indian") and denies patriarchy a place in her household. In effect, her resistance to colonialism turns out to be much more effective than that of the traditional and exclusive methods adopted by the patriarchs of Chilco.

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Chilco uses lyrical prose, poetic images, and dense metaphors to address the issues of a post-colonial world. Its fragmented and delirious narrative could alienate readers who expect a conventional plot. The abrupt ending also could affect the reading experience. But in a world that's turning more rigid and dangerous through wars, exploitation, climate change, and exclusiveness, Chilco finds relevance by proposing an alternative of mutual support and coexistence.