Traps the reader from the first page with its politicalundertones and its undeniable charm. -- Isabel Allende This "powerful, humane," prize-winning novel of politics,ballet, and a spectacular heist by a reluctant master thief and hiseager young protégé, "conjures...a contemporary Santiago,Chile, where the memory of Pinochet's reign and the 'disappearing'of citizens still looms" (Publishers Weekly). With prisonsoverflowing in Chile, the president declares a general amnesty forall nonviolent criminals. Ángel Santiago, a youth determinedto avenge abuse he received in jail, seeks out the notorious bankrobber Nicolás Vergara Grey, whose front-page exploits won hima reputation he would rather leave behind. Their plan for anambitious and daring robbery is complicated by the galvanizingpresence of Victoria Ponce, a virtuosic dancer and high-schooldropout whose father was a victim of the regime.  Praised for his "ability to place a personal story in thecontext of a national upheaval and make it warm, funny anduniversal" (San Francisco Chronicle), Antonio Skármetasets this exuberant love story against the backdrop of the newChile, free from the Pinochet dictatorship but beholden to theperils of globalization. The Dancer and the Thief, which wonSpain's prestigious Planeta Prize, is a remarkable new novel fromone of South America's finest storytellers.