Search results for ""Author Isabel Allende""

From internationally bestselling author Isabel Allende comes an exquisitely crafted, multigenerational love story.'A fairy tale of a novel' New York Times'A multi-generational epic of fate, war and enduring love' Harper's Bazaar'A poetic and profound meditation on the power of love' BustleIn 1939, as Poland falls under the shadow of the Nazis and the world goes to war, young Alma Belasco's parents send her overseas to live with an aunt and uncle in their opulent San Francisco mansion. There she meets Ichimei Fukuda, the son of the family's Japanese gardener, and between them a tender love blossoms, but following Pearl Harbor the two are cruelly pulled apart. Throughout their lifetimes, Alma and Ichimei reunite again and again, but theirs is a love they are forever forced to hide from the world.Decades later, Alma is nearing the end of her long and eventful life. Irina Bazili, a care worker struggling to reconcile her own troubled past, meets the older woman and her grandson, Seth, at Lark House nursing home. As Irina and Seth forge a friendship, they become intrigued by a series of mysterious gifts and letters sent to Alma, and learn about Ichimei and this extraordinary secret passion that has endured for nearly seventy years.

Read more less

THE NEW NOVEL FROM BESTSELLING AUTHOR ISABEL ALLENDE, THE WIND KNOWS MY NAME, IS OUT NOW _______________ 'Epic, beautifully crafted . . . Gripping from start to finish' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'A must for historical fiction lovers' COUNTRY AND TOWNHOUSE 'A new novel by Isabel Allende is always a treat' DAILY MAIL _______________ One extraordinary woman. One hundred years of history. One unforgettable story. Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first daughter in a family of five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events. The ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth. Told in the form of a letter to someone Violeta loves above all others, this is the story of a hundred-year life – of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Bearing witness to a century of history, it is a life shaped by the fight for women's rights, the rise and fall of tyrants and, ultimately, not one but two pandemics. Through the eyes of a woman whose unforgettable passion, determination and sense of humour will carry her through a lifetime of upheaval, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional. READERS LOVE VIOLETA 'Allende is truly a master of storytelling ... I didn’t want to reach the end' ***** 'A tour de force ... Stunning' ***** 'Beautifully written and intensely dramatic ... I loved every word' ***** 'Spellbinding, captivating and absorbing' ***** 'One of my favourite authors … I always find myself completely drawn into her richly detailed narratives' *****

Read more less

THE NEW NOVEL FROM BESTSELLING AUTHOR ISABEL ALLENDE, THE WIND KNOWS MY NAME, IS OUT NOW _______________ 'Epic, beautifully crafted . . . Gripping from start to finish' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'A must for historical fiction lovers' COUNTRY AND TOWNHOUSE 'A new novel by Isabel Allende is always a treat' DAILY MAIL _______________ One extraordinary woman. One hundred years of history. One unforgettable story. Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first daughter in a family of five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events. The ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth. Told in the form of a letter to someone Violeta loves above all others, this is the story of a hundred-year life – of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Bearing witness to a century of history, it is a life shaped by the fight for women's rights, the rise and fall of tyrants and, ultimately, not one but two pandemics. Through the eyes of a woman whose unforgettable passion, determination and sense of humour will carry her through a lifetime of upheaval, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional. READERS LOVE VIOLETA 'Allende is truly a master of storytelling ... I didn’t want to reach the end' ***** 'A tour de force ... Stunning' ***** 'Beautifully written and intensely dramatic ... I loved every word' ***** 'Spellbinding, captivating and absorbing' ***** 'One of my favourite authors … I always find myself completely drawn into her richly detailed narratives' *****

Read more less

Best selling international author, Isabel Allende tackles her homeland head-on in this staggering, epic romance. ‘Portrait in Sepia’ is both a magnificent historical novel set at the end of the nineteenth century in Chile and a marvellous family saga peopled by characters from ‘Daughter of Fortune’ and ‘The House of the Spirits’, two of Allende's most celebrated novels. As a young girl, Aurora del Valle suffered a brutal trauma that has shaped her character and erased from her mind all recollection of the first five years of her life. Raised by her ambitious grandmother, the regal and commanding Paulina del Valle, she grows up in a privileged environment, free of the limitations that circumscribe the lives of women at that time, but tormented by terrible nightmares. When she finds herself alone at the end of an unhappy love affair, she decides to explore the mystery of her past, to discover what it was, exactly, all those years ago, that had such a devastating effect on her young life. Richly detailed, epic in scope, this engrossing story of the dark power of hidden secrets is intimate in its probing of human character, and thrilling in the way it illuminates the complexity of family ties.

Read more less

_______________ 'An autobiographical meditation on feminism, power and womanhood … Full of Isabel's wisdom and warm words' - Grazia 'In her small, potent polemic . . . Isabel Allende writes about the toxic effects of “machismo”, combining wit with anger as she picks apart the patriarchy' - Independent 'Allende has everything it takes: the ear, the eye, the mind, the heart, the all-encompassing humanity' - New York Times An Independent, Guardian and Grazia Highlight for 2021 _______________ The wise, warm, defiant new book from literary legend Isabel Allende – a meditation on power, feminism and what it means to be a woman When I say that I was a feminist in kindergarten, I am not exaggerating. As a child, Isabel Allende watched her mother, abandoned by her husband, provide for her three small children. As a young woman coming of age in the late 1960s, she rode the first wave of feminism. She has seen what has been accomplished by the movement in the course of her lifetime. And over the course of three marriages, she has learned how to grow as a woman while having a partner, when to step away, and the rewards of embracing one's sexuality. So what do women want? To be safe, to be valued, to live in peace, to have their own resources, to be connected, to have control over their bodies and lives, and above all, to be loved. On all these fronts, there is much work to be done, and this book, Allende hopes, will ‘light the torch of our daughters and granddaughters with mine. They will have to live for us, as we lived for our mothers, and carry on with the work still left to be finished.’ _______________ 'Her thoughts, language and ideas traverse fluidly through ideas of gender, historic injustices, her marriages and bodily experiences and literary references . . . Allende’s love for women is palpable' - Sydney Morning Herald

Read more less

An ecological romance with a pulsing heart, equal parts Rider Haggard and Chico Buarque – one of the world’s greatest and most beloved storytellers broadens her style and reach with a Amazonian adventure story that will appeal to all ages. Fifteen-year-old Alexander Cold has the chance to take the trip of a lifetime. With his mother in hospital, too ill to look after him, Alex is sent out to his grandmother Kate – a fearless reporter with blue eyes ‘as sharp as daggers’ points’. Kate is about to embark on an expedition to the dangerous, remote world of the Amazon rainforest, but rather than change her plans, she simply takes Alex along with her. They set off with their team – including a local guide and his daughter Nadia, with her wild, curly hair and skin the colour of honey – in search of a fabled headhunting tribe and a legendary, marauding creature known to locals as the ‘Beast’, only to find out much, much more about the mysteries of the jungle and its inhabitants. In a novel rich in adventure, magic and spirit, internationally celebrated novelist Isabel Allende takes readers of all ages on a voyage of discovery and wonder, deep into the heart of the Amazon.

Read more less

THE POWERFUL AND MOVING NEW NOVEL FROM LITERARY LEGEND ISABEL ALLENDE - A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK FOR JULY 2024A testament to love, survival and sacrifice' HARPER'S BAZAAR No, we''re not lost. The wind knows my name. And yours too.Vienna, 1938. Five-year-old Samuel Adler boards the last Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria, escaping to England with just a change of clothes and his beloved violin. Eight decades later, Anita Diaz and her mother flee El Salvador for refuge in the United States, where the new family separation policy lands seven-year-old Anita alone at a camp in Nogales. Intertwining past and present, this is an unforgettable story of the search for family and home, the extraordinary sacrifices made by parents, and the courage of children to never stop dreaming. Allende blends fact and fiction, love and war . . . As you read her escapist tale you develop a richer understanding of the wo

Read more less

THE POWERFUL AND MOVING NEW NOVEL FROM LITERARY LEGEND ISABEL ALLENDE - A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK FOR JULY 2024'A testament to love, survival and sacrifice' HARPER'S BAZAAR No, we're not lost. The wind knows my name. And yours too.Vienna, 1938. Five-year-old Samuel Adler boards the last Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria, escaping to England with just a change of clothes and his beloved violin. Eight decades later, Anita Diaz and her mother flee El Salvador for refuge in the United States, where the new family separation policy lands seven-year-old Anita alone at a camp in Nogales. Intertwining past and present, this is an unforgettable story of the search for family and home, the extraordinary sacrifices made by parents, and the courage of children to never stop dreaming. 'Allende blends fact and fiction, love and war . . . As you read her escapi

Read more less

The author of ‘The House of the Spirits’ returns with a gritty yet transcendent tale of teenage addiction. Abandoned by her parents as a baby, Maya has been brought up by her tough grandmother Nini and her gentle grandfather Popo. But at school, the teenage Maya finds herself drawn towards the wrong crowd. Before she knows what’s happened, Maya’s life has turned into one of drug addiction and crime. Things go from bad to worse as Maya disappears into the criminal underworld. To save her from her old associates, Nini sends Maya to a remote island off the coast of Chile. Safe amongst her new neighbours, Maya feels compelled to write her story and slowly she begins to heal. But can she learn to live with her scars, and will her past ever catch up with her?

Read more less

THE POWERFUL AND MOVING NEW NOVEL FROM LITERARY LEGEND ISABEL ALLENDE PRAISE FOR THE AUTHOR 'A grand storyteller' - KHALED HOSSEINI 'A new novel by Isabel Allende is always a treat' - DAILY MAIL 'What a joy it must be to come upon Allende for the first time' - COLUM MCCANN No, we're not lost. The wind knows my name. And yours too. Vienna, 1938. Samuel Adler is five years old when his father disappears during Kristallnacht — the night their family loses everything. As her child’s safety seems ever harder to guarantee, Samuel’s mother secures a spot for him on the last Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria to England. He boards alone, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and his violin. Arizona, 2019. Eight decades later, Anita Diaz and her mother board another train, fleeing looming danger in El Salvador and seeking refuge in the United States. But their arrival coincides with the new family separation policy, and seven-year-old Anita finds herself alone at a camp in Nogales. She escapes her tenuous reality through her trips to Azabahar, a magical world of the imagination. Meanwhile, Selena Duran, a young social worker, enlists the help of a successful lawyer in hopes of tracking down Anita’s mother. Intertwining past and present, The Wind Knows My Name tells the tale of these two unforgettable characters, both in search of family and home. It is both a testament to the sacrifices that parents make, and a love letter to the children who survive the most unfathomable dangers — and never stop dreaming.

Read more less

THE POWERFUL AND MOVING NEW NOVEL FROM LITERARY LEGEND ISABEL ALLENDE PRAISE FOR THE AUTHOR 'A grand storyteller' - KHALED HOSSEINI 'A new novel by Isabel Allende is always a treat' - DAILY MAIL 'What a joy it must be to come upon Allende for the first time' - COLUM MCCANN No, we're not lost. The wind knows my name. And yours too. Vienna, 1938. Samuel Adler is five years old when his father disappears during Kristallnacht — the night their family loses everything. As her child’s safety seems ever harder to guarantee, Samuel’s mother secures a spot for him on the last Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria to England. He boards alone, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and his violin. Arizona, 2019. Eight decades later, Anita Diaz and her mother board another train, fleeing looming danger in El Salvador and seeking refuge in the United States. But their arrival coincides with the new family separation policy, and seven-year-old Anita finds herself alone at a camp in Nogales. She escapes her tenuous reality through her trips to Azabahar, a magical world of the imagination. Meanwhile, Selena Duran, a young social worker, enlists the help of a successful lawyer in hopes of tracking down Anita’s mother. Intertwining past and present, The Wind Knows My Name tells the tale of these two unforgettable characters, both in search of family and home. It is both a testament to the sacrifices that parents make, and a love letter to the children who survive the most unfathomable dangers — and never stop dreaming.

Read more less

“Powerfully evocative. . . . Allende is at her best here; spinning words like spells, enthralling the reader with surreal visions of the New World.”— NewsweekA passionate epic of love, freedom, and conquest, based on historical events, from the New York Times bestselling author of The House of the Spirits and A Long Petal of the Sea.Though she was born into poverty, Inés Suárez, a seamstress in sixteenth-century Spain, embodies the same restless hope and opportunism that fuels her nation’s conquest of the Americas.Learning that her shiftless husband has vanished, Inés uses his disappearance to embark on her own adventure. It is a journey will lead her to Pedro de Valdivia—a conquistador who becomes the first royal governor of Chile—and to a love that not only changes her life but the course of history.

Read more less

The vibrant new novel from Isabel Allende takes her back to her homeland of Chile, and tells the story of the first Spanish woman to arrive on its shores with the Conquistadors in the 1500s. A real historical figure, Inés Suarez came to Chile with the Conquistadors in 1540, helping to claim the territory for Spain and to found the first Spanish settlement in Santiago. In this remarkable novel, Isabel Allende – one of the world's most spellbinding storytellers – re-imagines Inés's life and that of the two men who become her lover and husband respectively. ‘Inés of My Soul’ evokes the conflict and drama of the Conquistadors' arrival in Chile, as well as helping restore the reputation of Inés, a powerful woman long neglected by history and a patriarchal society. It also finds Allende returning to territory beloved of her and her readers – imaginative historical fiction, evocatively told – and to the familiar landscape of her native country. The novel gives Inés the recognition and glory that are rightfully hers; but more than that it is an epic tale of love and conquest, lyrically written and enchantingly told by a writer at the peak of her powers.

Read more less

**The remarkable novel from the multi-million-bestselling author of The House of the Spirits and The Japanese Lover**Meet the unforgettable Eva Luna: a lover, a writer, a revolutionary and above all, a storyteller. Eva Luna is the daughter of a professor's assistant and a snake-bitten gardener – born poor, orphaned at an early age and working as a servant. Eva is a naturally gifted and imaginative storyteller who meets people from all walks of life. Though she has no wealth, she trades her stories like currency with people who are kind to her. As she shares her stories, she introduces an eccentric cast of characters: the Lebanese émigré who takes her in, her Catholic godmother who believes in saints, a street urchin who grows up to be the leader of the guerrilla struggle, a celebrated trans cabaret star and a young refugee whose flight from postwar Europe will change Eva's life forever. As Eva tells her story, Isabel Allende brings to life a complex South American country – the rich, the poor, the sophisticated – in a novel that celebrates the power of imagination and storytelling.Praise for Isabel Allende’s Eva Luna: ‘Vibrant, colourful characters; the ordinary fused with the grotesque; a Latin American setting, tropical this time; vivid, elegant narrative. The narrator, Eva Luna, is herself a story-teller in the Allende tradition’ Guardian ‘An evident affection for words, compassion for the oppressed and the inarticulate, the daring ambition to draw cross-sections of whole societies . . . Allende's work glows’ New York Times ‘Sumptuous . . . a tale that spans forty years and moves from a surreal jungle to a modern-day urban capital where even the most apolitical are driven to risky anti-government activities’ Chicago Tribune ‘Allende rearranges reality with a blend of memories, mysticism and imagination’ The Philadelphia Inquirer ‘A remarkable novel, one in which a cascade of stories tumbled out before the reader, stories vivid and passionate and human’ Washington Post ‘Magnificent . . . Allende is a prodigious fabulist, weaving extraordinary tales’ Publishers Weekly

Read more less

From the sugar plantations of Saint-Domingue to the lavish parlors of New Orleans at the turn of the 19th century, Isabel Allende's latest novel tells the story of a mulatta woman, a slave and concubine, determined to take control of her own destiny in a society where that would seem impossible. Born a slave on the island of Saint-Domingue – now known as Haiti –Tété is the product of violent union between an African mother she never knew and one of the white sailors who brought her into bondage. When twenty-year-old Toulouse Valmorain arrives on the island in 1770, it's with powdered wigs in his trunks and dreams of financial success in his mind. But running his father's plantation, Saint Lazare, is neither glamorous nor easy. Against the merciless backdrop of sugar cane fields, the lives of Tété and Valmorain grow ever more intertwined. When bloody revolution arrives at the gates of Saint Lazare, they flee the island for the decadence and opportunity of New Orleans. There, Tété finally forges a new life – but her connection to Valmorain is deeper than anyone knows and not so easily severed. Spanning four decades, ‘Island Beneath the Sea’ is the moving story of one woman's determination to find love amid loss, to offer humanity though her own has been so battered, and to forge her own identity in the cruellest of circumstances.

Read more less

We begin - at the turn of the century, in an unnamed South American country - in the childhood home of the woman who will be the mother and grandmother of the clan, Clara del Valle. A warm-hearted, hypersensitive girl, Clara has distinguished herself from an early age with her telepathic abilities - she can read fortunes, make objects move as if they had lives of their own, and predict the future. Following the mysterious death of her sister, the fabled Rosa the Beautiful, Clara has been mute for nine years, resisting all attempts to make her speak. When she breaks her silence, it is to announce that she will be married soon.Her husband-to-be is Esteban Trueba, a stern, willful man, given to fits of rage and haunted by a profound loneliness. At the age of thirty-five, he has returned to the capital from his country estate to visit his dying mother and to find a wife. (He was Rosa's fiancé, and her death has marked him as deeply as it has Clara.) This is the man Clara has foreseen - has summoned - to be her husband; Esteban, in turn, will conceive a passion for Clara that will last the rest of his long and rancorous life.We go with this couple as they move into the extravagant house he builds for her, a structure that everyone calls "the big house on the corner," which is soon populated with Clara's spiritualist friends, the artists she sponsors, the charity cases she takes an interest in, with Esteban's political cronies, and, above all, with the Trueba children: Blanca, a practical, self-effacing girl who will, to the fury of her father, form a lifelong liaison with the son of his foreman, and the twins, Jaime and Nicolás, the former a solitary, taciturn boy who becomes a doctor to the poor and unfortunate; the latter a playboy, a dabbler in Eastern religions and mystical disciplines and, in the third generation, the child Alba, Blanca's daughter (the family does not recognize the real father for years, so great is Esteban's anger), a child who is fondled and indulged and instructed by them all.For all their good fortune, their natural (and supernatural) talents, and their powerful attachments to one another, the inhabitants of "the big house on the corner" are not immune to the larger forces of the world. And, as the twentieth century beats on, as Esteban becomes more strident in his opposition to Communism, as Jaime becomes the friend and confidant of the Socialist leader known as the Candidate, as Alba falls in love with a student radical, the Truebas become actors - and victims - in a tragic series of events that gives The House of the Spirits a deeper resonance and meaning.

Read more less

**The moving novel from the multi-million-bestselling author of The House of the Spirits and The Japanese Lover**Irene Beltrán is a force to be reckoned with. As a magazine journalist – an unusual profession for a woman with her privileged upbringing – she is constantly challenging the oppressive regime. Her investigative partner is photographer Francisco Leal, the son of impoverished Spanish Marxist émigrés. They are an inseparable team, and – despite Irene’s engagement to an army captain – form a passionate connection. When an assignment leads them to uncover an unspeakable crime, they are determined to reveal the truth in a national overrun by terror and violence. Together they will risk everything for justice – and ultimately to embrace the passion that binds them. Praise for Isabel Allende's Of Love and Shadows: ‘[Allende] can just as deftly depict loving tenderness as convey the high fire of eroticism. And when you’ve successfully mingled sex and politics with a noble cause, how can you go wrong? New York Times Book Review ‘Allende is a born storyteller’ Chicago Tribune ‘The people in Of Love and Shadows are real, their triumphs and defeats are so faithful to the truth of human existence, that we see the world in miniature. This is precisely what fiction should do’ Washington Post ‘We are by turns enchanted and entertained . . . Allende has married the world of magic and political evil most credibly’ LA Times Book Review

Read more less