
Review by Kirstin
Clean
Death and drudgery
A slow-burning Chilean tale of power and class, Clean by Alia Trabucco Zerán is an exceptional novel and one of our stand-out reads of the year to date. It tells the story of Estela, a housemaid implicated in the death of her employers’ young daughter. From inside a locked room or perhaps cell, Estela addresses us, her potential jailers, before we can interrogate her. She is, apparently, attempting to set the record straight, recounting her years of drudgery and isolation in the frigid bosom of a wealthy family in Santiago, and how a series of interconnecting events have led to the death of her charge, seven-year-old Julia. An unsettling and atmospheric mystery unfolds.