An extraordinary story of love and exile, from one of the great masters of the Latin American novel''Having news from you is like opening a window''Santiago is trapped. Taken political prisoner in Montevideo after a brutal military coup, he can do nothing but write letters to his family, and try to stay sane. Far away in a different country, his father tries to adjust to life in exile, his daughter marvels at the big city, and his beautiful, careworn wife finds herself irresistibly drawn to another man, as day by day Santiago edges closer to freedom. Told with tenderness and fury through the voices of a family torn apart by history, Springtime in a Broken Mirror asks whether shattered lives can ever truly be mended. ''A masterful novel ... a remarkable collage of unique perspectives - or shards from that eponymous broken mirror'' The National