Chilean playwright, novelist and academic. He is coordinator and teacher of the postgraduate degree in Dramaturgy at the Universidad de Chile, where he studied Literature and holds a Diploma in Semiotics. He also teaches at other educational institutions in the country. He has held positions in academic administration, has developed his career as a theatre critic in El Mostrador.cl and as an academic in the dramatherapy programme of EDRAS. He has written the novels Trilogía karaoke, El Gran Dios Salvaje, The Eternal City and Patriots. He has written and directed several plays, such as Cobras o Pagas, Vaca Sagrada and Medea, among others.
The Eternal City
Dark, the whole city was still sleeping. The city
that would be eternal, immortal, the city that would
never cease to be.
There was no noise, the smell of the earth and wood
permeated the room. A rooster crowed. The wind was
cold in the winter dawn and the color of the night
gave way to the first light, which dyed the dawning
morning blue.
The rooster crowed again. The light took on a lighter
shade, still blue, but it was definitely not night anymore.
Quinto rolled over in bed and stretched, it was time
to get up. He threw back the wool blanket and sat
on the edge of the pallet.
In the Rome of 62 A.D., the mutilated and raped body of a young patrician woman is found far from her home, in the Subura, the most popular neighborhood in the city. Lucius Geminius Celsus, former legionnaire, exemplary Roman and member of the Urban Cohort –the empire's police–, is the first at the scene of the crime. Cornelia Merga Ocella is also there, an enigmatic and sensual woman with a privileged intelligence and a mysterious past. Together they will embark on a dizzying investigation to clarify the brutal murder and little by little they will be involved in a much larger conspiracy than they imagined, which will take them to the highest spheres of power of the empire and that will even endanger their lives.
With a relentless pace and remarkable historical precision, The Eternal City delves into the beginnings of Christianity, at a time when it was still considered a sect within the empire, outlines a very different Nero from the one thought to be known, and proposes an origin of the burning of Rome that we will not find in the history books.