Books
by Isabel Allende
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A Long Petal of the Sea |
A beautifully crafted, historical novel of exiles and love. Dr. Victor Dalmau caught up in the Spanish Civil War, and Roser, who is pregnant with his missing brother's child, flee to seek refuge in Chile. Married at first for convenience, a lasting love grows. They are forced into exile again by the Pinochet regime but eventually return to Chile. By describing individuals' lives, loves and tragedies Allende takes you on a magnificent journey through historical events.
(Christine Miller - bwl 100 Spring 2021) |
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Daughter of Fortune |
An epic novel stretching from colonial Chile to China and to the mayhem of the Californian gold rush. It is a passionate book exploring themes of racism and greed, as the heroine, abandoned by her lover, pursues him to California. The pursuit becomes a journey of self-discovery. The pages teem with colourful characters giving the reader a strong sense of the diversity of the people who created California - I found Tao Chi'en particularly interesting.
(Christine Miller - bwl 7 February 2001) |
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Of Love and Shadows |
As soon as the links between the characters started to fall into place I found the book compulsive reading. A beautifully written story and a graphic account of man's inhumanity to man, and man's ability to triumph over evil, set in a modern South American dictatorship.
(Jeremy Freeman - bwl 14 July 2002) |
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Portrait in Sepia |
This family saga, spanning several generations of a rich Chilean family, is a sequel to 'Daughter of Fortune' (bwl 7) and features some of the same colourful characters. Chronologically it precedes the author's very first novel, 'The House of the Spirits'. Isabel Allende is a great storyteller. She paints a vivid picture of 19th C Chilean society, of social unrest, revolution and repression. Against this background Aurora, the narrator, tells her tale.
(Wendy Swann - bwl 12 January 2002) |
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The Japanese Lover |
A very young Polish immigrant arrives in California at the outbreak of WW II, her story becomes intimately intertwined with the travails of a Japanese/American family during that time and that of the life of another European émigré in modern San Francisco. This presents something of a quest novel, in the beginning straight narrative which reads almost as documentary but which concludes with an intriguing and very satisfying, quirky twist. Insightful, surprising and warm!
(Margaret Teh - bwl 85 Summer 2017) |
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The Soul of a Woman |
Her father's abandonment of her mother and his children sets the course for Allende's feminism. She meditates on what it means to be a woman and what women want, such as to be safe, valued and loved. She hopes the book will 'light a torch' linking our daughters and granddaughters with those women already striving for these things and more. Allende writes with the compassion and the insight that comes with age, perhaps, and humour.
(Christine Miller - bwl 103 Winter 2022) |
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