The Stories of Eva Luna (Scribner Classics) - Hardcover

Allende, Isabel

3.98

21,186 ratings by Goodreads

9780684873596: The Stories of Eva Luna (Scribner Classics)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684873591 ISBN 13: 9780684873596

Publisher: Scribner, 1999

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Isabel Allende now ranks as 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 poor young Latin American woman who finds friendship, love, and some measure of worldly success through her powers as a storyteller. Her most ambitious novel up to that time, Eva Luna was described by the Washington Post as "a cascade of stories [that] tumbles out before the reader, stories vivid, passionate and human." Returning to this tale by popular demand, Allende unveiled The Stories of Eva Luna in 1991. A treasure trove of brilliantly crafted tales, the book showed us once again why Eva Luna and her much-celebrated creator have won such a large and devoted readership. We begin with Rolf Carl�, the European refugee, journalist, and lover who figured so largely in Eva Luna. Lying in bed with Eva Luna, he asks her to tell him a story. "What about?" she asks. "Tell me a story you have never told anyone before. Make it up for me." And so she does, giving Rolf Carl� and the reader twenty-three vibrant, enchanting demonstrations of her artistry. Here are compesinos and rich people, guerrillas and fortune-tellers, great beauties and tyrants, the foreign rendered indelibly familiar. Here is Clarisa, "born before the city had electricity, she lived to see television coverage of the first astronaut levitating on the moon, and she died of amazement when the Pope came for a visit and was met in the street by homosexuals dressed up as nuns"; here is El Capit�n, who waited for forty years before proposing to his dancing partner; Horacio Fortunato, a circus owner and entrepreneur, whose encounter with a languid foreign woman will force him to change his roguish ways even as he attempts to court her; Maurizia Rugieri, who abandons her husband and child for a young medical student, converting their life together into an opera of her own design; Nicholas Vidal, who "had always known that a woman would cost him his life" but never suspected that it would be the wife of Judge Hidalgo; Raid Halbi, once again displaying his concern and wisdom for the people of Agua Santa; Marcia Liberman, the wife of a European diplomat, whose brief affair with the President for Life of an unnamed Latin American country has startling rewards... Love, vengeance, nostalgia, compassion, irony -- Isabel Allende leaves no emotion untouched in these stories. Opulently imagined, stirringly told, they confirm her place as one of the world's leading writers.

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Review:

"The Orlando Sentinel Full of grace and passion...love and revenge...enchanting...One could go on reading her stories forever.

"Chicago Sun-Times"

Instantly seductive, richly sensual, and unabashedly romantic.

"The Orlando Sentinel"

Full of grace and passion...love and revenge...enchanting...One could go on reading her stories forever.

"The Wall Street Journal"

Gratifyingly ambitious...truly captivating...There is a richness in this book -- and it is, in its finest moments, a richness not only of language but of life.

Leigh Allison Wilson

"The Washington Post"

Allende is a real talent, an amazingly prolific one. In her stories there are palpable life and death risks, the risks of passionate love, the risks of passionate belief, of convictions and honor.

"San Francisco Chronicle"

An extraordinary fictional potion.

"San Francisco Chronicle"

Allende again shows her brilliance as a storyteller...[who] grips us from first sentence to last.

"The San Diego Union"

Isabel Allende always revives one's faith in the intoxicating power of sheer old-fashioned storytelling.

Gillian Steward

"The Calgary Herald"

The stories are like opulent parables...I, for one, sense I will be going back to this book again and again just to be with them.

Sarah Sheard

"The Toronto Star"

The fabulous scale of narrative, the characters as darkly pungent as coffee tinged with blood, charge her stories with a physicality and power that will leave the readers checking for bruises on their thighs.

Jane Urquhart

"Quill & Quire"

What is most admirable about this collection is Allende's ability to portray a world in which the ordinary and the miraculous, the natural and the supernatural, the political and the particular not only co-exist but actually affect one another.

"San Francisco Chronicle" Allende again shows her brilliance as a storyteller...[who] grips us from first sentence to last.

Sarah Sheard "The Toronto Star" The fabulous scale of narrative, the characters as darkly pungent as coffee tinged with blood, charge her stories with a physicality and power that will leave the readers checking for bruises on their thighs.

Gillian Steward "The Calgary Herald" The stories are like opulent parables...I, for one, sense I will be going back to this book again and again just to be with them.

"The Orlando Sentinel" Full of grace and passion...love and revenge...enchanting...One could go on reading her stories forever.

"Chicago Sun-Times" Instantly seductive, richly sensual, and unabashedly romantic.

"The Wall Street Journal" Gratifyingly ambitious...truly captivating...There is a richness in this book -- and it is, in its finest moments, a richness not only of language but of life.

Leigh Allison Wilson "The Washington Post" Allende is a real talent, an amazingly prolific one. In her stories there are palpable life and death risks, the risks of passionate love, the risks of passionate belief, of convictions and honor.

"The San Diego Union" Isabel Allende always revives one's faith in the intoxicating power of sheer old-fashioned storytelling.

"San Francisco Chronicle" An extraordinary fictional potion.

Jane Urquhart "Quill & Quire" What is most admirable about this collection is Allende's ability to portray a world in which the ordinary and the miraculous, the natural and the supernatural, the political and the particular not only co-exist but actually affect one another.

Eva Luna's stories are delicate, their images akin to poetry. --Barbara Kingsolver "New York Times ""

Allende is a real talent, an amazingly prolific one. In her stories there are palpable life and death risks, the risks of passionate love, the risks of passionate belief, of convictions and honor. --Leigh Allison Wilson "The Washington Post ""

Isabel Allende at her best. The twenty-three tales that compose the collection present a plethora of fascinating, robust characters. --Barbara Mujica "Americas ""

"Eva Luna's stories are delicate, their images akin to poetry."--Barbara Kingsolver "New York Times "

"Allende is a real talent, an amazingly prolific one. In her stories there are palpable life and death risks, the risks of passionate love, the risks of passionate belief, of convictions and honor."--Leigh Allison Wilson "The Washington Post "

"Isabel Allende at her best. The twenty-three tales that compose the collection present a plethora of fascinating, robust characters."--Barbara Mujica "Americas "

"Arresting and altogether distinctive, powerful and haunting; a collection to be read aloud and repeated for

generations."--Elaine Kendall "The Los Angeles Times "

About the Author:

Born in Peru, Isabel Allende is a member of the distinguished South American family once headed by Salvador Allende, Chile's popular leftist president deposed in the CIA-backed Pinochet coup of 1973. Fleeing first to Venezuela and then to the United States, she worked as a journalist for many years and only began to write fiction in 1981. The result was the widely acclaimed international best-seller The House of the Spirits, which was soon followed by the novels Of Love and Shadows and Eva Luna. In 1995, Allende's memoir, Paula, which centered upon her struggle to care for her beloved and comatose daughter, appeared to universal admiration. Isabel Allende is also the author of The Infinite Plan, Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses, and Daughter of Fortune. She lives in San Rafael, California.

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