I’ve been a fan of Isabel Allende’s books for about 30 years, and I find this recent novel her most interesting and incisive work so far. They eventually return to a changed Chile in 1983 and pick up the pieces of their lives. Victor and Roser are forced to flee once again, this time to Venezuela. A socialist government is elected in 1970 and is then displaced in a bloody military coup in 1973. But gradually Chile also becomes a political battleground. Here, they work and integrate into their adopted country and its culture. With a stroke of luck and a marriage of convenience, they’re able to secure passage on the ship Winnepeg to Chile. After each manages to flee over the Pyrennes to France, they’re surprised to find it’s another country hostile to Spanish war refugees. Our main characters are refugees Victor and Roser, a couple thrown together in the exodus from Spain. The initial setting is the Spanish Civil War of the late 1930s, and the trounced rebellion against Franco’s dictatorship. The title is a description of the geography of Chile by its famous poet, Pablo Neruda, who also plays a pivotal role in the book.Įvents in Spain and Chile from 1936-1994 provide the backdrop for a maturing love story as well as a multi-generational family saga with themes of loyalty, separation, upheaval, resiliency, and that understated element of many family histories – unplanned pregnancies. I was delighted to find myself transported to the history and culture of Spain and South America as I turned the pages of Isabel Allende’s latest work of historical fiction, A Long Petal of the Sea. Reading a great novel from another place and time can give needed respite from the dilemmas we’re experiencing today. Amy Mills reviews Allende’s latest book , A Long Petal of the Sea. South American author Isabel Allende tells an engrossing tale of two refugees who make the trip halfway around the world, only to become embroiled in Chile’s own internal upheaval. One of the lesser known migrations in modern history was that of refugees from the Spanish Civil War to Chile in 1939.
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