Eva Luna

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