Exiliana

Poetry. Latino/Latina Studies. In her collection of poetry, EXILIANA, Mariela Griffor expresses her innermost thoughts in words of not her mother tongue in rich, beautiful, passionate verse unlike any other documentary or memoir produced that reflects upon the devastation, loss and casualties--both mortally and emotionally--of civil unrest. Griffor's first loss was her fiance. Her second loss was after her and her unborn child's quick and subsequent flight out of Chile to escape the threat of her own arrest. As a 24-year-old woman, she took haven in Sweden, a land of cold and endless nights, where she was left to ponder the "what-ifs" of an abruptly aborted romance, the welfare of her family and friends, the fate of her FPMR compatriots, and the land of mountains and eucalyptus she had always known as home. Even in the privileged and exclusive community of Grosse Pointe Park, Mich., which she now calls home, Griffor's heart and soul remains in exile.