A long drive across Chile's Atacama desert, traversing "the worn-out puzzle" of a broken family—a young man's corrosive intimacy with his mother, the obtrusive cheer of his absentee father, his uncle's unexplained death—occupies the heart of this novel. Camanchaca is a low fog pushing in from the sea, its moisture sustaining a near-barren landscape. Camanchaca is the discretion that makes a lifelong grief possible. Sometimes, the silences are what bind us.

Diego Zúñiga (born 1987) is a Chilean author and journalist. He is the author of two novels and the recipient of the Juegos Literarios Gabriela Mistral and the Chilean National Book and Reading Council Award. He lives in Santiago de Chile.

Megan McDowell's translations include books by Alejandro Zambra, Arturo Fontaine, Lina Meruane, and Mariana Enriquez, and have been published in the New Yorker, the Paris Review, Tin House, and McSweeney's, among others. She lives in Santiago, Chile.

Translated by: Megan McDowell