"In this memoir, Isabel Allende reconstructs the painful reality of her own life in the wake of tragic loss--the death of her daughter, Paula. Recalling the past thirteen years from the daily letters the author and her mother, who lives in Chile, wrote to each other, Allende ... recounts the stories of the wildly eccentric, strong-minded, and eclectic tribe she gathers around her that becomes a new kind of family. Throughout, Allende shares her thoughts...

Traces the lives of the Truebas family, starting with clairvoyant Clara de Valle's summoning of the man she intends to marry, ambitious Esteban Trueba, and following their lives through which they suffer and triumph.

Isabel Allende evokes the magnificent landscapes of her country; a charming, idiosyncratic Chilean people with a violent history and an indomitable spirit; and the politics, religion, myth, and magic of her homeland that she carries with her even today.The book circles around two life-changing moments. The assassination of her uncle Salvador Allende Gossens on September 11, 1973, sent her into exile and transformed her into a literary writer. And...

A biography of the Chilean author and poet traces his odyssey from a poverty-stricken youth, through his participation in the Spanish Civil War and exile from his own country, to his remarkable literary endeavors.