On a large farm, located in the Andean foothills in the mid-south of Chile, Conrado was born and raised as a child and, later, a young man, whose physical and psychological characteristics differ greatly from the rest of his family and the school community. He is Germanic in appearance, blond, blue-eyed and very tall, unlike the others, whose features are those of Chileans and their Mapuche ancestors.
What, in his early years, was painful for him, due to the bullying he was subjected to at school, ends up transforming into an obsession to understand where his Nordic genes come from. He discovers, in an old trunk, which had belonged to his great-great-grandmother Frederika, who had arrived from Europe at the end of the 19th century, the first clues about his origin. Already fully involved in the knowledge of his family's past, he forges a life plan, which includes the university study of German and History, in order to reach the very source of the strange secret, which is revealed through letters and documents from his great-grandfather Ladislao Eguiguren Montalva, who had been a member of the Chilean elite in those distant times.
Little by little, the hidden facets of the arrival of his great-great-grandmother to a place so far from her native country are discovered. In his exhaustive investigation, Conrado even goes so far as to travel to Europe, to recognize the place of origin of his German family, and chance takes him first to the Mediterranean coast, where he meets the youth of the still existing rancid nobility and, in the midst of them, his Swiss-Italian cousin, who not only facilitates his family research, but also gives him her support against his father, the Duke of Starkenbach, who flatly refuses to accept the upstart as a member of his ancestral family. With her, he arrives at the family's ancestral castle in the middle of the Swiss Alps, where a past of almost pathological loves and a sordid family drama are revealed, in which the young man is involved body and soul.
To make matters better, the two young people end up falling in love and Conrad manages to free Elisabetta from her life full of excesses, as part of that European aristocratic youth.
You'll find here a deeply evocative exploration of the ways in which personal and familial identities are shaped by history, culture, and memory. Through its richly developed characters, vivid settings, and poignant themes, the novel invites readers to reflect on the legacies we inherit and the choices we make in preserving or redefining them. Ramdohr's work stands as a testament to the power of storytelling in bridging the past and the present, offering a narrative that is as universal in its emotional resonance as it is uniquely grounded in its cultural context.
Nacióoacute; el añntilde;o 1952 en Santiago en el seno de una familia de clase media con un padre abogado y una madre corredora de propiedades. Cursó la enseñanza primaria y secundaria en el Colegio Alemáaacute;n de Santiago. Desde muy chico fue un asiduo lector, tanto en español como en alemán.
Estudió luego, desde 1971, en la Facultad de Arquitectura de la Universidad de Chile, obteniendo el año 1978 el tíiacute;tulo de arquitecto.
Se casó el año 1975 a los 22 años con María Soledad Silva, con quien permanece casado desde esa fecha, habiendo tenido 5 hijos a los que educó en colegios de habla alemana.
Con su esposa formaron el año 1979 la Empresa Constructora Ramcon Limitada, la que dirigió hasta el año 2015. Para ponerse al día con las tecnologías aprendió, primero, programación computacional, más tarde dibujo asistido por computador (autocad) y finalmente la versión más moderna de los sistemas BIM, Revit. Tambiéeacute;n hizo cursos de administración de empresas y negocio inmobiliario.
Desde los tiempos colegiales siempre tuvo habilidad para la escritura, tanto como para la redacción de ensayos. El año 2005, tardíamente, se decidió emplear su capacidad para escribir una novela, la que sería precursora de otras tantas que tiene escritas hasta esta fecha.
El año 2015 decidió cerrar su empresa y dedicarse exclusivamente a su tarea como escritor. Con tal motivo se incorporó al taller literario de Gonzalo Contreras, siendo ésta la segunda experiencia de este tipo, después de haber estado antes con Carla Guelfenbein. El año 2016 hizo en la Facultad de Letras de la Universidad Diego Portales un Diplomado en Escritura Creativa, graduándose con nota 7. Además, hizo un curso virtual de Lectura Profesional dictado por la Asociación de Escritores de España.
Habiéndose interesado en la novela histórica, el escritor ha hecho exhaustivas investigaciones en torno a la historia de Chile y ha participado en dos seminarios dictados por la Universidad San Sebastián relativos a los tiempos de la Colonia y de la Independencia.
