by Haley Cohen Gilliland
Avid Reader Press
7/15/2025, hardcover
SKU: 9781668017142
A remarkable new talent in narrative nonfiction delivers the epic true story of a group of courageous grandmothers who fought to find their grandchildren who were stolen.
In the early hours of March 24, 1976, the streets of Buenos Aires rumble with tanks as soldiers seize the presidential palace and topple Argentina's leader. The country is now under the control of a military junta, with army chief Jorge Rafael Videla at the helm. With quiet support from the United States and tacit approval from much of Argentina's people, who are tired of constant bombings and gunfights, the junta swiftly launches the National Reorganization Process or El Proceso--a bland name masking their ruthless campaign to crush the political left and instill the country with "Western, Christian" values. The junta holds power until 1983 and decimates a generation.
One of the military's most diabolical acts is kidnapping hundreds of pregnant women. After giving birth in captivity, the women are "disappeared," and their babies secretly given to other families--many of them headed by police or military officers. For mothers of pregnant daughters and daughters-in-law, the source of their grief is twofold--the disappearances of their children, and the theft of their grandchildren. A group of fierce grandmothers forms the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, dedicated to finding the stolen infants and seeking justice from a nation that betrayed them. At a time when speaking out could mean death, the Abuelas confront military officers and launch protests to reach international diplomats and journalists. They become detectives, adopting disguises to observe suspected grandchildren, and even work alongside a renowned American scientist to pioneer groundbreaking genetic tests.
A Flower Traveled in My Blood is the rarest of nonfiction that reads like a novel and puts your heart in your throat. It is the product of years of extensive archival research and meticulous, original reporting. It marks the arrival of a blazing new talent in narrative journalism. In these pages, a regime tries to terrorize a country, but love prevails. The grandmothers' stunning stories reveal new truths about memory, identity, and family.
Reviews:
"Journalist Haley Cohen Gilliland immortalizes the heroic resistance of the women who called themselves the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo....A Flower Traveled in My Blood meticulously chronicles a chapter of humankind at its worst, giving these times their gruesome due, lest they be forgotten and repeated." -- BookPage (starred review)
"[Gilliland] conveys the complicated, heart-wrenching fullness of her characters' individual stories and shades their backdrop with compulsively readable history of geopolitical tension and the emerging DNA science that fueled the Abuelas' fight. Gilliland's work, exhaustively and compassionately researched, offers a crucial counterbalance to the dark legacy of Argentina's desaparecidos, injecting the light of a model resistance movement that lay the groundwork for future international human rights investigations. Her humility and respect for the fraught journeys her subjects made toward each other and for the vital questions their journeys raised--about power, identity, family, and collective memory and healing--ensure the text will resonate for generations the world over. A piercing, emotional tribute to the value of persistent resistance." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
About the Author:
Haley Cohen Gilliland is a journalist and the director of the Yale Journalism Initiative. She previously worked at The Economist for seven years, four of which were spent in Buenos Aires as the paper's Argentina correspondent. Following her time at The Economist, she has focused on narrative nonfiction--bringing history and current events to life through fact-based storytelling. She has published long-form feature articles in The New York Times, National Geographic, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Vanity Fair, among other publications. She lives in New York state with her husband, two children, and dogs. A Flower Traveled in My Blood is her first book.