The author of 'The House of the Spirits' returns with a gritty yet transcendent tale of teenage addiction. The narrator and protagonist of 'Maya's Notebook' is a 19-year-old girl who grows up in Berkeley, California, and falls into a life of drug addiction and crime. To rescue Maya, and save her from the criminal types pursuing her, Maya's Chilean grandmother sends her to a remote island off the southern coast of Chile. Here she lives among a traditional rural people, the Chilote, who speak an older form of Spanish and have remained largely isolated from the materialism, crime, and fast-paced contemporary life which is our own. The book alternates between the narrative in the US and that on Chiloe, the island, so the two strands of the story unfold for the reader at more or less the same time. This new book is very different from Isabel's previous historical novels: a contemporary setting; an American (of Latino descent) teenage drug addict as the protagonist and narrating voice; a realistic style of writing rather than a magical realistic one (Chiloe exists, and one can visit it). Maya's voice is modeled on that of Isabel's teenage granddaughter, a native of the Bay area (San Francisco, Berkeley).

Un pasado persiguiendola. Un futuro aun por construir. Y un cuaderno para escribir toda una vida. Soy Maya Vidal, diecinueve anos, sexo femenino, soltera, sin un enamorado, por falta de oportunidades y no por quisquillosa, nacida en Berkeley, California, pasaporte estadounidense, temporalmente refugiada en una isla al sur del mundo. Me pusieron Maya porque a mi Nini le atrae la India y a mis padres no se les ocurrio otro nombre, aunque tuvieron nueve meses para pensarlo. En hindi, maya significa 'hechizo, ilusion, sueno'. Nada que ver con mi caracter. Atila me calzaria mejor, porque donde pongo el pie no sale mas pasto. Esta Maya me ha hecho sufrir mas que ningun otro de mis personajes. En algunas escenas le habria dado unas cachetadas para hacerla entrar en razon, y en otras la habria envuelto en un apretado abrazo para protegerla del mundo y de su propio corazon atolondrado.

From the sugar plantations of Saint-Domingue to the lavish parlors of New Orleans at the turn of the 19th century, Isabel Allende's latest novel tells the story of a mulatta woman, a slave and concubine, determined to take control of her own destiny in a society where that would seem impossible. Born a slave on the island of Saint-Domingue — now known as Haiti — Tete is the product of violent union between an African mother she never knew and one of the white sailors who brought her into bondage. When twenty-year-old Toulouse Valmorain arrives on the island in 1770, it's with powdered wigs in his trunks and dreams of financial success in his mind. But running his father's plantation, Saint Lazare, is neither glamorous nor easy. Against the merciless backdrop of sugar cane fields, the lives of Tete and Valmorain grow ever more intertwined. When bloody revolution arrives at the gates of Saint Lazare, they flee the island for the decadence and opportunity of New Orleans. There, Tete finally forges a new life — but her connection to Valmorain is deeper than anyone knows and not so easily severed. Spanning four decades, 'Island Beneath the Sea' is the moving story of one woman's determination to find love amid loss, to offer humanity though her own has been so battered, and to forge her own identity in the cruellest of circumstances.

In December 1991, Allende's daughter Paula, aged 26, fell gravely ill and sank into a coma. This book started as a letter to Paula written during the hours spent at her bedside, and became a personal memoir and a testament to the ties that bind families — a brave, enlightening, inspiring true story. This book was written during the interminable hours the novelist Isabel Allende spent in the corridors of a Madrid hospital, in her hotel room and beside her daughter Paula's bed during the summer and autumn of 1992. Faced with the loss of her child, Isabel Allende turned to storytelling, to sustain her own spirit and to convey to her daughter the will to wake up, to survive. The story she tells is that of her own life, her family history and the tragedy of her nation, Chile, in the years leading up to Pinochet's brutal military coup.

From the sugar plantations of Saint-Domingue to the lavish parlors of New Orleans at the turn of the 19th century, Isabel Allende's latest novel tells the story of a mulatta woman, a slave and concubine, determined to take control of her own destiny in a society where that would seem impossible. Born a slave on the island of Saint-Domingue, Zarite — known as Tete — is the daughter of an African mother she never knew and one of the white sailors who brought her into bondage. Though her childhood is one of brutality and fear, Tete finds solace in the traditional rhythms of African drums and the voodoo loas she discovers through her fellow slaves. When twenty-year-old Toulouse Valmorain arrives on the island in 1770, it's with powdered wigs in his trunks and dreams of financial success in his mind. But running his father's plantation, Saint Lazare, is neither glamorous nor easy. Against the merciless backdrop of sugar cane fields, the lives of Tete and Valmorain grow ever more intertwined. When the bloody revolution of Toussaint Louverture arrives at the gates of Saint Lazare, they flee the island that will become Haiti for the decadence and opportunity of New Orleans. There, Tete finally forges a new life — but her connection to Valmorain is deeper than anyone knows and not so easily severed. Spanning four decades, Island Beneath the Sea is the moving story of one woman's determination to find love amid loss, to offer humanity though her own has been so battered, and to forge her own identity in the cruellest of circumstances.

A brilliant memoir from the celebrated Chilean novelist on friends, family and life in California, her adopted home. Isabel Allende has sold more than 50 million copies of her books worldwide. The most beloved and successful of her books, 'The House of the Spirits', was based on her Chilean childhood, and her autobiographical works include the deeply moving 'Paula' — a family history written at the bedside of her daughter while she lay in a coma — and the fascinating 'My Invented Country', which explored the events of her native Chile where she lived until Pinochet's military coup. Now, in 'The Sum of the Days', we have Isabel describe in an exceptionally vivid, human and deeply personal way her life in California where she has lived for more than 25 years. The first page picks up from where Paula ends — her daughter never did wake up from her coma and died in 1992 — when Allende recounts spreading Paula's ashes in her favourite part of the woods by their home. It is fair to say that Isabel has never recovered from losing her daughter but has managed to survive by keeping her husband, son, grandchildren as well as close friends — kindred spirits — central to her life.' The Sum of the Days', based on Allende's own journals and daily correspondence with her mother in Chile, reveals the author to be a dazzling, generous, warm and hysterically funny matriarch within her swirl of family and friends.

Born into a poor family in Spain, Ines, a seamstress, finds herself condemned to a life of hard work without reward or hope for the future. It is the sixteenth century, the beginning of the Spanish conquest of the Americas, and when her shiftless husband disappears to the New World, Ines uses the opportunity to search for him as an excuse to flee her stifling homeland and seek adventure. After her treacherous journey takes her to Peru, she learns that her husband has died in battle. Soon she begins a fiery love affair with a man who will change the course of her life: Pedro de Valdivia, war hero and field marshal to the famed Francisco Pizarro. Valdivia's dream is to succeed where other Spaniards have failed: to become the conquerer of Chile. The natives of Chile are fearsome warriors, and the land is rumored to be barren of gold, but this suits Valdivia, who seeks only honor and glory. Together the lovers Ines Suárez and Pedro de Valdivia will build the new city of Santiago, and they will wage a bloody, ruthless war against the indigenous Chileans--the fierce local Indians led by the chief Michimalonko, and the even fiercer Mapuche from the south. The horrific struggle will change them forever, pulling each of them toward their separate destinies. Ines of My Soul is a work of breathtaking scope: meticulously researched, it engagingly dramatizes the known events of Ines Suárez's life, crafting them into a novel full of the narrative brilliance and passion readers have come to expect from Isabel Allende.

Paula es el libro más conmovedor, más personal y más íntimo de Isabel Allende. Junto al lecho en que moría su hija Paula, la gran narradora chilena escribió la historia de su familia y de si misma con el propósito de regalársela a Paula cuando ésta superara la enfermedad.

Isabel Allende narra aquí la asombrosa historia de Aurora del Valle, que a los 30 años va en busca de su brumoso pasado familiar, después de vivir en San Francisco a cargo de su abuela Paulina, una rica empresaria hecha a sí misma. Cuando Paulina vuelve a Chile, una serie de mujeres fortalecerán el carácter de Aurora, que a finales del siglo XIX se perfila como defensora de los derechos de la mujer en una sociedad dominada por los hombres...

«Esta es la historia de una mujer y de un hombre que se amaron en plenitud, salvándose así de una existencia vulgar. «La he llevado en la memoria cuidándola para que el tiempo no la desgaste, y es sólo ahora cuando puedo finalmente contarla. Lo haré por ellos y por otros que me confiaron sus vidas para que no las borre el viento». Estas bellas palabras proporcionan la clave de un libro en el que la imaginación y realidad discurren al mismo nivel. Segunda novela de Isabel Allende, De amor y de sombra es un agudo testimonio de las dramáticas situaciones que se viven en ciertas regiones de América Latina, al tiempo que un canto de amor y de esperanza. Con ternura e impecable factura literaria, Isabel Allende perfila el destino de sus personajes como parte indisoluble del destino colectivo de un continente marcado por el mestizaje, las injusticias sociales y la búsqueda de la propia identidad. Este logrado universo narrativo es el resultado de una lúcida conciencia histórica y social, así como de una respuesta estética que constituye una singular expresión del realismo mágico.»

Nadia y Alexander viajan al corazón de África con su abuela Kate, a quien han encargado un gran reportaje. Su encuentro con el hermano Fernando, un misionero que está buscando a dos com­pañeros desaparecidos, marca 21 comienzo de este nuevo destino: la selva tropical africana, donde la caza clandestina del elefante y otros animales salvajes arrastra a mercenarios sin escrúpulos. Los malvados son ahora los jefes de la Hermandad del Leopardo: el comandante Mbembelé, el brujo Sombe y el rey Kosongo, que ha esclavizado a la tribu de los pigmeos. Los protagonistas, empujados por la curiosidad primero y la solidaridad después, lograrán sortear mil y un peligros gracias a sus poderes: Nadia, de hacerse invisible y hablar con los animales. Alexander, de transformarse en jaguar, y ambos de poder comuni­carse con los espíritus. Entrarán en contacto con la cultura de los pigmeos, a los que, con la ayuda del espíritu de la reina Nana ­Asante, lograrán liberar de la esclavitud. La paz entre los pigmeos y las otras tribus será posible a partir de ahora. Con El Bosque de los Pigmeos, Isabel Allende cierra la trilogía «Memorias del Águila y del Jaguar», iniciada con La Ciudad de las Bestias.

«Eva Luna, amante, revolucionaria, narradora, reclinada en la cama con su amante, le cuenta una historia «que nunca ha contado antes a nadie», en veintitres vivdos y fascinantes relatos sobre guerrilleros y nigromantes, seductores y tiranos, diplomáticos y acróbatas. En esta estupenda colección de cuentos, Isabel Allende continúa la magia de su muy elogiada novela Eva Luna.»

El plan infinito narra la historia de Gregory Reeves, un gringo que se hace a sí mismo en el difícil mundo de los hispanos de California. Gregory quiere llevar a la práctica el peculiar plan infinito que se trazó a sí mismo en su infancia. Sin embargo, para conseguirlo debe recorrer un duro camino lleno de obstáculos: la marginación social, el racismo, el brutal contraste entre pobreza y riqueza, la guerra de Vietnam... Ésta es una de las novelas más logradas y apasionantes de la gran escritora chilena.