Pablo Neruda persuades the Chilean government to accept two thousand Spanish refugees for resettlement.

But the borders are closed and the refugees are left, starving and exposed.įrom here the novel shapes the story into a broad history of the plight of the Spanish refugees. Along with thousands of others, they attempt to cross into France.

When the Republican forces are defeated by General Franco’s army, Roser and Victor’s mother, Carme, join Victor’s friend, Aitor Ibarra. She becomes Guillam’s lover and eventually falls pregnant to him before Guillam is killed during combat. Roser Bruguera, a young music student of their father’s, shows prodigious talent. His brother, Guillam, is a soldier in the conflict. Victor Dalmau is a young medical assistant in the Spanish Civil war. The novel begins in Spain, 1938, with General Franco’s Nationalist forces fighting Republican soldiers attempting to resist the inevitable. The novel spans over half the century, shaping the story around the history of two dictatorships through the guise of a family saga. As much as the book may appear to be a novel about characters, it is also about Chile and the impact of fascism on people in the twentieth century. Extracts from Neruda’s poetry form epigraphs to each chapter as well. It’s taken from a line of poetry from one of Chile’s foremost poets, Pablo Neruda. The title, itself, as magical as it may sound, refers to the long, thin country of Chile on the Western coast of South America. In fact, the book at times feels like a non-fiction account. Allende draws directly from history and admits that she has based her fictional characters upon real people whom she has known and interviewed. A Long Petal of the Sea is not magic realism, however. In fact, it was the constant recommendation of that book by a work colleague that drew me to Allende’s latest novel, A Long Petal of the Sea, published earlier this year. She also has a reputation as a South American magic realist writer, with books like House of Spirits, which made her reputation in the 1980s. In her author biography Allende describes herself as a novelist, feminist and philanthropist. I’ve never read Isabel Allende before, so I have little to compare her latest book to.

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