The best books of Isabel Allende

Despite being born in the Peruvian Lima on August 2, 1942, Isabel Allende was always Chilean, rather the daughter of a Latin American continent who found one of her best writers in her. Ambassador of magical realism and a critical and feminist literature, the author of La casa de los espíritus has even sold 65 million books around the world. We have compiled the best books of Isabel Allende as the best way to enter the universe of what is one of the great Latin authors of the twentieth century.

The House of Spirits (1982)

Thinking of Allende means doing it in La casa de los espíritus, a novel that made it known throughout the world after its publication in 1982. Converted into a bestseller instantaneous, the work is a great heir to the magical realism which emerged in the 60s as well as a perfect portrait of post-colonial Chile in which a family, the Trueba, witness the degradation of their line due to betrayals, visions and political tension. The success of the novel was such that in 1994 it was released the film adaptation of the book starring Jeremy Irons and Meryl Streep.

Of love and shadow (1984)

After the success of La casa de los espíritus, Isabel Allende told the world a story that had been saved for a long time. He did it from his adopted Venezuela and delving into the cruelty of the Chilean dictatorship, in the darkness in the midst of which the stories of three families and the romance between Irene and Francisco they are a hymn to human dignity and freedoms. One of his best selling books, De amor y de sombra is one of Allende's most special books and another one that was adapted to the cinema, this time in 1994 with Antonio Banderas and Jennifer Connelly as protagonists.

Eve Moon (1987)

When Allende wanted to adapt The Thousand and One Nights to Latin American jargon, he realized that the continent did not yet have an official narrator. In this way, Eva Luna became her particular Scheherazade and in the protagonist of a novel that follows the escapades of a young woman whose ability to tell stories falls in love with two men involved in the guerrillas. The novel, a success after its publication, led to a short story book called Tales of Eva Luna just as recommended.

Paula (1994)

In December 1991, Paula, Isabel Allende's daughter, He was admitted to a Madrid hospital where he fell into a coma, indefinitely stopping the life of the author. It would be during the days of waiting with her daughter, when Isabel would start a work with a letter to her daughter that leads to the experiences and thoughts of the author herself: from the echoes of the Chilean dictatorship to the preparation of her works while Paula, little by little, a body was leaving for less infamous universes. Isabel Allende's most intimate book; raw, real. Resigned.

Daughter of fortune (1999)

Set between 1843 and 1853, Hija de la fortuna evokes the 100% Allende concept: an unfortunate young woman in search of love in a historical period of change and tension. In this case, the protagonist is Eliza Sommers, a young Chilean adopted by an English family during the British rule of Valparaíso who falls in love with Joaquín, a lover who left for California during Gold Rush in 1849. Eliza's adventure will lead her to discover another world at the hands of a Chinese doctor through the pages of what is one of Isabel Allende's best books.

Portrait in Sepia (2002)

With Daughter of Fortune, Isabel Allende began a set of books set during the time of the California Gold Rush, of which Portrait in Sepia is also a part. The story, narrated in the first person by Aurora del Valle, Eliza Sommers' granddaughter, covers her life under the protection of her grandmother, Paulina del Valle, her development as a photographer or her stormy romance with Diego Domínguez. With the city of San Francisco as a backdrop, Portrait in Sepia bets on a greater lyricism and feminism, by reducing the romantic story to one of the three parts that make up the book.

Ines of my soul (2006)

The testimony bequeathed to his daughter Isabel allows us all to know the story of the first woman to arrive in Chile: Inés, a young woman from Extremadura who sets out in search of her lost husband without knowing that she will end up enrolling in one of the most important historical episodes of the South American continent. From the fall of the Inca empire in Cuzco to the founding of Santiago de Chile, Inés del alma mía, more than the story of a heroine, is the portrait of a looted continent.

The island under the sea (2009)

After digging in different corners of his continent, Allende immersed himself in the slave-owning Haiti of the XNUMXth century. A territory defined by voodoo ceremonies, riots, and first revolutionary movement against slavery in 1791. A period of change lived by a slave, Zarité, who after seeming condemned to give mulatto children to a perverse master ends up knowing what lies beyond the earth that limited those who once felt the clamor under the drums, those of that island under the sea so far from the Caribbean. Highly recommended.

The Japanese Lover (2015)

One of the last novels of Isabel Allende was also one of the most praised when addressing the theme of love, a classic of the author, from a different perspective. Set during World War II, The Japanese Lover chronicles the romance between Alma Velasco and Ichimei, a Japanese gardener, through different countries during the second half of the XNUMXth century. A heartbreaking story conceived as a fairy tale for adults that denotes the possible absence of one true love but the universality of many others (and not necessarily romantic ones).

Beyond winter (2017)

«In the middle of winter I finally learned that there was an invincible summer in me»

From this quote by Albert Camus the last published work of Allende is born. The novel, possibly one of the most focused on the Latino diaspora in the United States, presents three characters during one of the worst storms on the continent: a Chilean, a Guatemalan and an American man who are going through the worst time of their respective lives. Three stories that intersect without their protagonists being able to guess the arrival of an unexpected summer.

What are for you the best books on Isabel Allende?


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  1.   Katina monaca said

    The House of the Spirits, is (after One Hundred Years of Solitude of the Great Gabo -QEPD-) the most beautiful work that I have read in my life followed very closely by another wonderful book: Of Love and Shadows.

  2.   yoselyn said

    the city of the beasts also by this very good writer is a very good book that leaves too many lessons for the reader, I felt that it was necessary to mention it.