Imagining Argentina is an award-winning novel by Lawrence Thornton

Lawrence Thornton

Lawrence A. Thornton is an American author best known for his first novel, Imagining Argentina, which won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, the Shirley Collier Award from University of California, Los Angeles , the PEN American Center West Award for Best Novel and a nomination for a PEN/Faulkner...

, about the Dirty War

Dirty War

The Dirty War was a period of state-sponsored violence in Argentina from 1976 until 1983. Victims of the violence included several thousand left-wing activists, including trade unionists, students, journalists, Marxists, Peronist guerrillas and alleged sympathizers, either proved or suspected...

 in 1970s Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...

, Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

, where the military government

Military dictatorship

A military dictatorship is a form of government where in the political power resides with the military. It is similar but not identical to a stratocracy, a state ruled directly by the military....

 is abducting those opposed to its rule. Cecilia, a dissident

Dissident

A dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy, or institution. When dissidents unite for a common cause they often effect a dissident movement....

 journalist

Journalist

A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

, is kidnapped by the secret police

Secret police

Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....

 to join the ranks of the 'disappeared

Forced disappearance

In international human rights law, a forced disappearance occurs when a person is secretly abducted or imprisoned by a state or political organization or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the...

', as her husband Carlos, a theater director, searches frantically for her and others through "imagining" their fates in prisons and cells.

In 2003, the novel was adapted to film

Imagining Argentina (film)

Imagining Argentina is a 2003 film directed and written by Christopher Hampton. The movie was nominated for the "Golden Lion" award at the 2003 Venice Film Festival...

 by Christopher Hampton

Christopher Hampton

Christopher James Hampton CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, screen writer and film director. He is best known for his play based on the novel Les Liaisons dangereuses and the film version Dangerous Liaisons and also more recently for writing the nominated screenplay for the film adaptation of...

.