Wayne State Alumni Association is offering exclusive access to a range of online webinars. Join us for the next webinar, Alumni Webinar Series: "Author Talk with Andrea Yaryura Clark of On a Night of a Thousand Stars”

Andrea Yaryura Clark grew up in Argentina amid the political turmoil of the 1970s until her family relocated to North America. After completing her university studies, she returned to Buenos Aires to reconnect with her roots. By the mid-1990s, many sons and daughters of the “Disappeared”—the youngest victims of Argentina’s military dictatorship in the 1970s—were coming of age and grappling with the fates of their families. She interviewed several of these children, and their experiences, not widely known outside Argentina, inspired her debut novel. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, two sons and a spirited terrier.

In this story, a young Argentinian-American woman discovers her country's dark history and uncovers her family's secret past. Through careful research and well-crafted prose, Clarke's historical novel will captivate and educate you about an aspect of Argentina's history that many Americans don't know.

New York, 1998. Santiago Larrea, a wealthy Argentine diplomat, is holding court alongside his wife, Lila, and their daughter, Paloma, a college student and budding jewelry designer, at their annual summer polo match and soiree. All seems perfect in the Larreas’ world—until an unexpected party guest from Santiago's university days shakes his usually unflappable demeanor. The woman's cryptic comments spark Paloma’s curiosity about her father’s past, of which she knows little.

When the family travels to Buenos Aires for Santiago's UN ambassadorial appointment, Paloma is determined to learn more about his life in the years leading up to the military dictatorship of 1976. With the help of a local university student, Franco Bonetti, an activist member of H.I.J.O.S—a group whose members are the children of the Desaparecidos, or the “Disappeared,” men and women who were forcibly disappeared by the state during Argentina’s “Dirty War”—Paloma unleashes a chain of events that not only leads her to question her family and her identity but also puts her life in danger.