The Stories of Eva Luna

✍ Scribed by Allende, Isabel

• Book ID: 107261292
• Publisher: Scribner
• Year: 1974
• Tongue: Portuguese
• Weight: 191 KB
• Category: Fiction

✦ Synopsis

Isabel Allende is one of the world's most beloved authors. In 1988, she introduced the world to Eva Luna in a novel of the same name that recounted the adventurous life of a young Latin American woman whose powers as a storyteller bring her friendship and love. Retruning to this tale, Allende presents The Stories of Eva Luna, a treasure trove of brilliantly crafted stories.

Lying in bed with her European lover, refugee and journalist Rolf Carle, Eva answers hes request for a story "you have never told anyone before" with these twenty-three samples of her vibrant artistry. Interweaving the real and the magical, she explores love, vengeance, compassion, and the strenghts of women, creating a world that is at once poingnantly familiar and intriguingly new.

Rendered in the sumptuously imagined, uniquely magical style of one of the world's most stunning writers, The Stories of Eva Luna is the conerstone of Allende's work. It is not to be missed by anyone -- whether a devotee of Ms. Allende's oeuvre or a new acquaintance to her work.

From Publishers Weekly

The eponymous heroine of Eva Luna returns as the narrator of 23 tales, sumptuous marriages of Chilean writer Allende's earthy characters and her celestial version of magical realism. Although other figures from that novel also reappear (for example, Eva Luna spins her stories at the request of her lover Rolf Carle), this collection is in no sense a sequel: indeed, each piece here can stand alone. Allende's people are warm-blooded, original, memorable. A simple lyricism evokes European emigres to South America; social climbers; outlaws; schoolteachers; Indians; a nearly indefatigable imagination explores the critical moments in these figures' lives. Many of the stories build on the intricate attachments of unlikely lovers, such as a dictator and the foreign woman he abducts or a criminal and a judge's wife. Allende's inventiveness justifies her own comparisons of her literary creation to Scheherazade, and throughout all these short works whispers the mysticism of Eva Luna herself--her well-placed faith in a world of spirits and in the immortality of human love.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Born in Chile but now living in Northern California, Allende is the first female Latin American novelist to become well-known to the American reading public. Her novels-- The House of the Spirits ( LJ 4/15/85), Of Love and Shadows ( LJ 5/1/87), and Eva Luna ( LJ 10/15/88)--are frequently compared to those of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The title character of the third book narrates the 24 stories in this collection, which, though scattered with familiar names, places, and images, is an independent work, not a sequel. Allende employs the techniques of Latin American magical realism to create a vivid world full of humor, passion, pathos, and color. Highly recommended. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/1/90.
- Mary Margaret Benson, Linfield Coll . Lib., McMinnville, Ore.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.