Zurita finished his studies in civil engineering and was arrested in 1973, the day of Pinochet ’ s military coup. In 1979, the year he published Purgatorio, Zurita, along with write rs and artists Fernando Balcells, Diamela Eltit, Lotty Rosenfeld and Juan Castillo, founded CADA (Colectivo de Acciones de Arte), an art action group that created provocative public art performances against Pinochet’s military dictatorship in Chile. Besides the numerous books he has authored, Zurita is also known for the skywritten ‘poetry-action’ in 1982, where five aeroplanes wrote his poem ‘La Vida Nueva’ (‘The New Life’) over New York City. In 1992, Zurita inscribed in the sands of the Atacama desert across three kilometres the words ‘ni pena ni miedo’ (‘neither pain nor fear’).