In February 2026, AIUK UK South America Team, alongside the Embassy of Chile, jointly launched the book “Music and Political Imprisonment in Pinochet’s Chile” by Katia Chornik. The event was opened by the outgoing Ambassador, Her Excellency Ms Ximena Fuentes, and by Graham Minter of the AIUK UK South America Team. He recounted his own experiences in Chile as a junior diplomat, shortly after the military coup in 1973 that led to Pinochet’s dictatorship. During the event, special guest Philippe Sands KC interviewed Katia about the characters in her book, behind-the-scenes stories, and its historical, cultural, and human rights significance.
Over 1,000 political imprisonment and torture centres existed across Chile during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet (1973-90). Music was often present in those centres, both as a response to and part of human rights violations. Katia explores the relationships among music, politics, memory, and human rights, discussing a broad range of musical experiences and repertoire and how they are remembered, preserved, and disseminated decades later.
The book probes how pieces written, performed, and listened to in captivity are threaded into survivors’ memories of mistreatment, resilience, and experiences beyond resistance. Katia blends sources from the Cantos Cautivos digital archive with interviews with ex-political prisoners, agents of secret services, and visitors to prisons, proposing the notion of “memory cacophony” to describe the discordant kaleidoscope of voices, memories, repertoire, and experiences unveiled. Katia demonstrates how music, as an expression of powerful lived experiences, is an essential component of the cultural history and legacy of the Pinochet period.
The book is published by Oxford University Press. Philippe Sands is featured in the latest edition of Amnesty Magazine (page 28) discussing his latest book 38 Londres Street, which also has a focus on Pinochet and the military dictatorship.