The Condor Trials

“[A] vital two-part study. . . . [Lessa’s] painstaking work on Plan Condor and Latin America’s state criminality is both admirable and important.”—Miranda France, Times Literary Supplement

“Francesca Lessa’s outstanding new book is the most comprehensive and up-to-date account of the wave of transnational repression—commonly known as ‘Operation Condor’—unleashed by south America’s military regimes in the 1970s. . . . An Olympian view of the Condor system.”—Philip Chrimes, International Affairs

“A new and refreshing text. . . . This book will greatly interest scholars, activists, and global citizens who are interested in discussions of extreme violence and its consequences, human rights, historical memory, and reparations, especially in the Global South.”—Tyler J. Goldberger, H-Net Reviews

“The Condor Trials helps us understand why human rights activists from Latin American countries see it as their duty to continue to fight for truth, memory, and justice for past events.”—Lucía Cholakian Herrera, North American Congress of Latin America

Honorable Mention received for the Bryce Wood Book Award, sponsored by the Latin American Studies Association

Winner of the 2023 Juan E. Méndez Book Award for Human Rights in Latin America, sponsored by the Duke Human Rights Center at the Franklin Humanities Institute

The Spanish translation of The Condor Trials was awarded the 2024 Premio Iberoamericano Book Award by LASA.

The Spanish translation of The Condor Trials received an honorable mention for the Best Book Award of the Recent History and Memory Section of the Latin American Studies Association

“Lessa’s exploration of transnational repression in 1970s South America could not be more current in these days of resurgent authoritarianism. Her analysis of the Condor period is groundbreaking and documents both the human rights crimes and the efforts of international ‘justice seekers’ to breach—eventually—the dictatorships’s impunity.”—John Dinges, author of Hunting Enemies Abroad

“There is no other book that combines a decade of research on Operation Condor and transnational repression by the South American military regimes with synthesis of the literature on efforts to achieve accountability for human rights violations and analysis of the prosecutions in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Italy.”—Brian Loveman, San Diego State University

“This gripping account of Operation Condor breaks important new ground in our understanding of complex justice processes for grave human rights violations. Lessa’s analysis of ‘justice seekers’ highlights the central role of victims in transitional and transnational justice processes. Most importantly, she centers the deeply moving stories of the victims of Operation Condor, whose lives were forever altered by transnational state terror.”—Jo-Marie Burt, George Mason University