Island Beneath the Sea | Isabel Allende

This is such a treat. Allende's novels is such a treat. She veers from her usual landscapes and characters to the Caribbean and the island of Haiti. The story involves whites, Negro slaves, mulattoes, quadroons and every shade in between. I learned a lot about of Saint-Domingue the original name of this island. It was a French colony, populated by rich white French, some Spanish and the imported slaves which worked in the sugar cane industry. It appears to have been one of the worst colonies for a slave to live in with the cruelty towards them incredible to read about. The novel follows the Valmorain family and their slaves and the children the master has with his wife and with his slave woman Tete. The chapters go between the voices of the narrator telling us the general story and Tete's chapters in which she  tells us her perspective.

Eventually there is an uprising and the family flees to New Orleans where they have to adapt to new ways of dealing with slavery and then to the news that Napoleon has sold Louisiana to the Americans.

It's a great story well told, and the characters are memorable as in most of Allende's novels and well worth reading.
Other books by Allende are "Eva Luna", "Stories of Eva Luna", "Paula", "Daughter of Fortune", "Portrait in Sepia", "Zorro", "Ines of my Soul", "The Sum of our Days".

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Eva Luna | Isabel Allende

As soon as I started this book I was hooked and unequivocally sold on Allende’s prose. This is the first of her novels that I read and I loved it. Of course I went on to read them all. Eva Luna is the story of a young Latin American girl who discovers
love, friendship and success through her incredible ability as storyteller. 

Eva Luna is an orphan and learns about life through meeting the people in her barrio who give her the wisdom she needs for life. The urchin who commits petty crimes and later leads a band of guerrillas; a local Lebanese who takes her in and nurtures her; the transsexual eccentric who educates her in the ways of the world; her godmother who's mind is gone and thus lives in a world populated by all the saints in her calendar. In the characters we meet a version of a South American country which is rich in it's social make up. Rich, poor, sophisticated and the simple minded are all beautifully portrayed. 

I really enjoy the way these stories capture the likeness of people and situations. 

If you enjoy this novel read "The Stories of Eva Luna" which continues the story of her life. 

“Paula” tells the tragic story of Allende’s vigil by her daughter’s bedside through a fatal illness. She recounts her family history for Paula, just in case she can hear. In "My Invented Country"  she tells of her family’s history in Chile and subsequent escape to the USA because of her family’s political affiliations to Allende. “City of the Beasts” is a short novel for older children. There are many more titles.

I have read Allende in Spanish and in English translation and both are fabulous.

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