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OF LOVE AND SHADOWS

by Isabel Allende ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

Completely unbelievable, lacking any artfulness.

With none of the thick variety of The House of the Spirits (1985), only sharing that better book’s political zeal, Allende returns with a damp-Kleenex papier-mâché construction that pits a conventionally unlikely love duo against the fierce bloodthirstiness of an unnamed Latin American Society (Argentina, Chile, take your pick). 

            Irene Beltran is a journalist for a popular but nervy urban magazine, and her upbringing in the society of the rich and indolent leaves her little ready for what dawns on her apropos the political situation in her land.  What’s worse, she’s engaged to a straight-arrow military man; but when she’s paired on assignment with a leftist journalist, Francisco Leal, in investigating the disappearance and murder of a teenaged girl, the light is seen – and fiancé and old habits of thinking are whisked away.  She and Francisco fall in love (“…he had lived until then only for this miraculous night when he would plunge forever into the depths of intimacy with this woman, Irene, honey and shadow, Irene, peach, sea foam, the seashell of your ears, the perfume of your throat, the doves of your hands…” – the nausea of this prose), and seem together to provide the fulcrum by which the whole rotted social fabric is tipped over and destroyed.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: 0553383833

Page Count: -

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1987

ROMANCE | GENERAL ROMANCE

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by Isabel Allende ; translated by Frances Riddle

by Isabel Allende

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IT ENDS WITH US

by Colleen Hoover ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 2, 2016

Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...

Hoover’s ( November 9 , 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.

At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.

Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Atria

Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016

GENERAL ROMANCE | ROMANCE | CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE

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by Colleen Hoover

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SEEN & HEARD

Kirkus Reviews' Best Books Of 2019

THE LAST LETTER

by Rebecca Yarros ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 26, 2019

A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.

A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.

Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves. Yarros’ ( Wilder , 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by well-drawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing. Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.

Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-64063-533-3

Page Count: 432

Publisher: Entangled: Amara

Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

GENERAL ROMANCE | ROMANCE | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE

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by Rebecca Yarros

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Booklover Book Reviews

Of Love and Shadows by Isabel Allende, Review: Courage & passion

Of Love and Shadows by Isabel Allende is a memorable novel that switches from heart-stopping action to magical moments of reflection. Read on for our full review.

Of Love and Shadows  Book Synopsis:

Set in a country of arbitrary arrests, sudden disappearances and summary executions, Isabel Allende’s magical new novel tells of the passionate affair of two people prepared to risk everything for the sake of justice and truth.

Irene Beltran, a reporter, comes from a wealthy background; Francisco Leal, a young photographer secretly engaged in undermining the military dictatorship, is strongly attracted by her beauty. It does not matter that Irene’s fiance is an army captain: each time Francisco accompanies her on a magazine assignment, he falls more deeply in love with her.

When Irene and Francisco go to investigate the mysterious case of Evangelina Ranquileo, a girl suffering from spectacular fits which are rumoured to have miraculous powers, the arrival of soldiers adds a sinister aspect to the mystery. And then Evangelina disappears. In trying to trace her and indict the Junta, Irene and Francisco become engulfed in a vortex of terror and violence. 

Translated from the original Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden

Genre: Action-Adventure, Drama, Romance, Historical

Disclosure: If you click a link in this post we may earn a small commission to help offset our running costs.

BOOK REVIEW

Of Love and Shadows has it all – hope, faith, sorrow, pain, romance, humour, heartache and happiness.

“For women, the best aphrodisiacs are words. The G-spot is in the ears. He who looks for it below there is wasting his time.”

Protagonists Irene Beltran and Francisco Leal are an unlikely alliance, but quickly become a force to be reckoned with. They dare to challenge people’s thinking and risk their lives in doing so.

Isabel Allende’s Of Love and Shadows is a story of courage and passion that will stay with you long after reading.

Allende’s prose is so luxurious and versatile. It switches from heart-stopping action sequences to magical moments of reflection and contemplation with ease. The narrative is cloaked in a mystical veil of South American folklore, reminiscent of the writing of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

“All you will have is the present. Waste no energy crying over yesterday or dreaming of tomorrow. Nostalgia is fatiguing and destructive, it is the vice of the expatriate. You must put down roots as if they were forever, you must have a sense of permanence.”

More broadly, I am often shocked and saddened at the appalling way humans treat each other on the basis of racial or religious differences. Of Love and Shadows is an example of fiction that shines the light on such inequities and atrocities, and can help change a generation’s thinking. I highly recommend it.

BOOK RATING: The Story 5 / 5 ; The Writing 4.5 / 5 — Overall 4.75 / 5

Get your copy of Isabel Allende’s Of Love and Shadows from:

Amazon Bookshop Book Depository Kobo Booktopia OR listen to the audiobook FREE with Audible’s Trial (check eligibility)

Related Reads: The Return by Victoria Hislop  /   A Reluctant Warrior by Kelly Brooke Nicholls  /   Water Will Find Its Way by Bronagh Slevin  /   Farabeuf by Salvador Elizondo

About the Author, Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende is a Chilean American author born in Lima, Peru in 1942 . Other bestselling Isabel Allende books include The House of Spirits , Island Beneath The Sea , Daughter of Fortune   and her more recent book releases Maya’s Notebook , Ripper and The Japanese Lover .

• Isabel Allende’s website is a treasure trove of information from photos, interviews, and speeches and other published works.
• Of Love and Shadows was made into a film starring Antonio Banderas and Jennifer Connelly

Source: IMdB.com

Other reviews  Of Love and Shadows

“Allende has forsaken the epic multi-generational sweep of her bestselling first novel, The House of the Spirits , for a more tightly focused yet equally satisfying tale of love and political commitment.” — Publishers Weekly

A booklover with diverse reading interests, who has been reviewing books and sharing her views and opinions on this website and others since 2009.

Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Latin American Literature › Analysis of Isabel Allende’s Of Love and Shadows

Analysis of Isabel Allende’s Of Love and Shadows

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on August 3, 2023

Originally published in Spain as De amor y de sombra in 1984, Of Love and Shadows continues the interest of Isabel Allende (1942– ) in both transcendent romantic love and devastating social oppression. The first of her novels written after The House of the Spirits , Of Love and Shadows draws on Allende’s own experiences as a journalist and a civilian living under a military dictatorship. The book also recounts a historical event, the actual discovery in 1978 of 15 bodies of murdered peasants. The peasants had been killed in 1973, the year the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte assumed power in Chile.

The military coup’s seizure of power provided Allende with the topic and theme for the work that followed the acclaimed The House of the Spirits. In many ways, Of Love and Shadows is a tighter novel than its successful predecessor; it definitely transpires over a shorter period of time and delves less into family history than The House of the Spirits . The novel also revolves around a single event: the discovery of the massacred bodies, rather than the many interwoven stories of generations of a family. Of Love and Shadows also contains fewer magical elements than The House of the Spirits; the realistic portrayal of the brutality of the military regime mitigates the appeal of the relatively benign magic and supernatural forces of Allende’s first novel. Indeed, what magical events that do appear in Of Love and Shadows take on one of two forms: violence or passion.

But Of Love and Shadows also suggests Allende’s developing strengths as a novelist. Her two main characters, Irene Beltrán and Francisco Leal, exist in a richly colored world of prostitutes and military officers, passionate love and lethal violence. Allende has also created another strange “house”: The Will of God Manor, the home Irene shares with her mother—and the quixotic, diverse group of old people whose rent provides the only income Irene’s mother can accept with dignity. Allende also traces the central event of the novel, Irene and Francisco’s discovery of the bodies, through an intricate series of seemingly unrelated events, beginning with the unfortunate switching of two babies in a hospital. The children’s pragmatic mothers decide to keep their switched offspring and raise them as their own, naming both Evangelina. Although both mothers love their adopted daughters, the children grow up to experience vastly different fates.

Isabel Allende – IMDb

One Evangelina, the victim of her adopted brother’s incestuous desire, grows up an almost ethereal creature, beautiful but tainted, with a carnal awareness unnatural to her seeming innocence. She begins to have fits, enacting sexual positions and expressions each time, and soon gains the reputation of saintliness. Unfortunately, Evangelina also attracts the attention of her brother’s commanding officer, who attempts to “cure” her by surrounding the house with his men and firing weapons. The frail young girl in her possessed state bodily lifts the man and removes him from the premises. Later, she is neither so lucky nor so strong; he drags her screaming from her home, and she “disappears,” presumably having been raped and killed.

Irene and Francisco, present when Evangelina trounces the military officer, do not simply stumble upon the mine containing the multiple bodies, but rather are led to it by an elaborate series of events. Irene, a young, idealistic, naive journalist, and Francisco, her photographer, discover that Evangelina has disappeared. Both attempt to find her, searching through their contacts with the military and the morgue, but they find no trace of the young girl. In the process, Irene thoroughly loses her innocence and her enchantment with the world around her. Engaged to a military officer Francisco spitefully thinks of as “the Bridegroom of Death,” Irene falls in love with Francisco instead. Irene and Francisco succeed in tracing Evangelina’s brother, who has deserted the army, and from him they learn of his incestuous love for Evangelina. Another officer, with ties to Evangelina’s family, eventually confesses what he believes to be the rest of the story. Having learned the probable location of Evangelina’s body from her brother, Irene and Francisco explore—and eventually discover more than they had bargained for—an entire burial ground or mass grave. Through Francisco’s connection with the Catholic Church, they leak the secret—and it explodes in the faces of government officials.

Unfortunately, the story also affects Irene as well; she is literally gunned down in the street. Despite the gravity of her injuries, Irene does not die. She and Francisco are then forced to flee their country. The book ends with the repeated words “we will return,” suggesting that their exile is not permanent and that the terrible military dictatorship cannot last forever. True to the novel’s title, the story revolves around both love and shadows, and the two seeming opposites are closely linked. Irene and Francisco make love after having found the pitiful remains of Evangelina’s body. It is also Francisco’s steadfast love and protection that saves Irene after she is shot. His presence brings her comfort and his connections are instrumental in smuggling them out of the country.

The political commentary in the novel rings with obvious implications. It critiques both the horrors of a power-mad military dictatorship, one closely similar to Pinochet’s rule in Chile, and the willful ignorance of citizens who remain blind to the abuses of that government. Although Irene herself chooses to oppose military authority, her mother remains blind, believing that everything is fine and the government is benevolent and just. Though Irene and Francisco must leave their home and their families to save their lives, the novel ends on a hopeful note. The two have found love and passion in the midst of death and oppression. They have also overcome the lethal threat of the military. Ultimately they are together. And eventually Irene and Francisco will return, bringing with them a better future for themselves, their families, and their country.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Correas Zapata, Celia. Isabel Allende: Life and Spirits. Translated by Margaret Sayers Peden. Houston: Arte Público Press, 2002. Rojas, Sonia Riquelme, and Edna Aguirre Rehbein. Critical Approaches to Isabel Allende’s Novels. New York: Peter Lang, 1991.

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Book Review # 501: Of Love and Shadows

The Horrors of the Regime

World history is dotted with several authoritarian regimes that have shaped the landscape of history. The ascent of these populist leaders and political strongmen has indelibly altered the flow of history. Their perversion towards violence led to several bloodsheds that marked dark periods of human history. Fascism and authoritarian regimes have become synonymous with Adolf Hitler.  He laid the groundwork for his dreams of reviving an Aryan republic. As history would have it, he masterminded one of the biggest genocides in modern history. Over in Italy, the teeth of fascism came biting with the rise to power of Benito Mussolini. In Spain, a new fascist was slowly inching towards absolute power. When the dust of the Spanish Civil War settled, Generalissimo Francisco Franco was installed as the nation’s absolute leader.

This phenomenon was not entirely unique to Europe. In Africa, several nations are still governed by presidents for life. As of date, there are five sitting African heads of state that have been in power for over three decades: Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Cameroon’s Paul Biya, Republic of Congo’s Denis Sassou Nguesso, Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, and Eritrea’s Isaias Afwerk. Biya is the longest consecutively serving non-royal leader in the world and is also the oldest head of state in Africa. Meanwhile, in Asia, the Philippines has Ferdinand Marcos Sr., North Korea has Kim Jong-un, Syria has Bashar al-Assad, and Kazakhstan’s Nursultan Nazarbayev, among others. Autocratic leaders have become ubiquitous and are staples in the majority of countries across the world.

Latin America also has had its fair share of dictators and their atrocities are well documented in literary works of Latin American writers. In fact, Latin American literature has a subgenre specifically dedicated to this literary probe into the legacy of autocracy and the psychological profiles of dictators. These are referred to as dictator novels. Among the scores of Latin American writers who wrote about the legacy and horrors of dictatorships was Isabel Allende. While not considered a dictator novel, the Chilean writer’s debut novel, The House of the Spirits , is widely recognized as one of the best works of modern Latin American, if not world literature. The House of the Spirits immediately catapulted Allende to literary stardom.

“In a few words, since by nature and professional training he was more inclined to listen attentively than to talk, he told her that for some time he had not found employment as a psychologist and was looking for any respectable job. Photography had seemed a good possibility, but since he had not wanted to be like those amateurs who end up begging to photograph weddings, baptisms, and birthdays, he had come to the magazine.” ~  Isabel Allende, Of Love and Shadows

Building on the momentum from her debut novel, she published her sophomore novel, De amor y de sombra in 1984. A year later, the book was made available to Anglophone readers with the title Of Love and Shadows . Just like her debut novel, Of Love and Shadows is set in an anonymous country. While there were no direct references, it is not rocket science to figure out that the novel was set in Allende’s home country, Chile. At the heart of the story was Irene Beltrán, a magazine editor. She was born into an affluent, bourgeois family of junta supporters. She was also engaged to Army Captain Gustavo Morante. Her life, as she knew it, started to unravel with her encounter with photographer Francisco Leal. Unlike Irene, Francisco was the poor son of a communist. He has a degree in psychology but he was unable to put it to good use, hence, his shift to photography to earn himself a living as a journalist.

The crux of the story was when Irene and Francisco traveled to the countryside. Rumors of the supernatural powers possessed by Evangelina Ranquileo, a farmgirl living near the village of Los Riscos, reached Irene. While the central event of the story is between Francisco and Irene, the novel also backtracks to capture the story of Evangelina. It started with the story of two babies who were switched at birth. Nevertheless, the children’s mothers opted to raise their switched offspring. Both girls were named Evangelina. Digna, Evangelina Ranquileo’s mother, raised her as though she was her own. Evangelina would grow up the center of her brother’s incestuous desire. Despite this, she grew up assuming an air of the ethereal. Her supernatural powers started to manifest as convulsions and the enactment of lewd positions and expressions.

It didn’t take long before rumors of Evangelina’s power started spreading like wildfire. People from different parts of the region flocked to the Ranquileo home hoping that Evangelina would heal them from their maladies. When Irene and Francisco arrived at the Ranquileo home, they found that the army had arrived too. Evangelina’s brother Pradelio, who works in the military, has told his superior Lieutenant Juan de Dios Ramirez, about his sister’s abilities. Believing it to be a hoax, the lieutenant and his corpse gatecrashed the Ranquileo home. Their aim was to scare Evangelina by surrounding their home with firearms. It backfired as the army bore witness to her supernatural power. Out of humiliation, the lieutenant held the Ranquileo family at gunpoint and arrested Evangelina.

Unfortunately, Evangelina would not be heard from again, devastating her mother. To get to the bottom of her disappearance, Irene and Francisco volunteered to help Digna look for Evangelina. Their inquiries took them to various parts of the region, pointing them to the military station and even to the morgue. Hints of Evangelina’s whereabouts were trickling in but they were far and few in between. Irene and Francisco also had to wade through these various leads and filter which of them were true and which were not. Francisco was cognizant of the urgency of this case. Time is of the essence lest they lose every trace of Evangelina. What they did not know was that their sleuthing would lead them to the discovery of the gruesome secrets of the regime.

“She had become the wife of a desaparecido. She had often said that no one disappeared in their country, and that such stories were anti-patriotic lies. When she saw the distraught women marching every Thursday in the plaza with portraits of their relatives pinned to their bosoms, she had said they were in the pay of Moscow. She never imagined she would find herself in the same situation as those wives and mothers searching for their loved ones.” ~  Isabel Allende, Of Love and Shadows

As the story slowly unfolded, it was increasingly becoming palpable what Allende was trying to capture. She was painting a vivid portrait of the authoritarian regime in her nation. The dictator’s tentacles were everywhere. A gathering of more than three people is immediately intervened by the police or the military. Locals have also learned to be discrete about what they say because it is the “basis for survival.” The literary shadows of fascism haunted Irene and Francisco everywhere they went. These were realities that Francisco was already cognizant of, after all, he grew up in a household helmed by a supporter of communism. The same cannot be said for Irene, who grew up in the comforts of affluence. At the morgue, the stench of death was an eye-opener, piercing the veil of ignorance draped on her by her affluence.

This part of the novel was rife with vivid images of the atrocities committed by the Augusto Pinochet regime, which wreaked havoc from 1973 to 1990. However, like the country and the places in the book, Pinochet was never named; he was simply referred to as the dictator. We read of how the regime stymied all forms of activism. Those who were perceived to be members of revolutionary movements were tortured in concentration camps or were killed and buried en masse in mass graves. The media and journalism were censored; Irene’s profession was symbolic and she would also find herself grappling with the political red tapes. The extent of atrocities perpetrated by the regime was beyond one’s imagination. Once the beacon of democracy in Latin America, Chile found itself trudging the same path as its neighbors.

The sea of difference between Irene and Francisco captures how the authoritarian regime was experienced by the denizens of Chile. Those who are affluent are shielded from these atrocities. Some, like Irene’s mother Beatriz Alcantara, become advocates of the regime. They find bliss in their ignorance of the events that are actually happening around the country. For sure, some cannot be blamed as news that trickles into their realms is filtered by the regime. They believe that the insurgents and the activists deserve their persecution by the military. They are a nuisance, disruptions to the “peace” that permeates the air. Even as the truth came knocking on their door – and the international press got wind of the oppression – Irene’s mother chose to ignore it. Little knowledge can be dangerous but it can also be bliss.

“All you will have is the present. Waste no energy crying over yesterday or dreaming of tomorrow. Nostalgia is fatiguing and destructive, it is the vice of the expatriate. You must put down roots as if they were forever, you must have a sense of permanence.” ~  Isabel Allende, Of Love and Shadows

For Irene, uncovering the atrocities of the regime put her at a crossroads. She was starting to see through the smokescreen. She was even starting to question her relationship with her fiance; she was delaying her marriage although her mother was pressuring her to seal the deal. Logically and expectedly, the proximity of Francisco and Irene would lead to romantic overtones, hence, the titular “love”. But, of course, this element plays second fiddle to the shadows referred to in the title that are lurking at every corner of the country. The novel actually recounts a historical event. In 1978, the bodies of 15  murdered essentially peasants were uncovered in a mass grave. This exposed the Pinochet regime to the rest of the world. Ironically, the rest of the world just stood by. More mass graves of los desaparecidos (the disappeared) would be uncovered in the years following the fall of the Pinochet regime.

Compared to its predecessor, Of Love and Shadows had little elements of magical realism. In her sophomore novel, Allende aimed for a realistic portrayal of the brutalities perpetrated by the military regime. The contrasting elements of passionate love and lethal violence provide the magical element of the story. In stepping out of the shadows of magical realism, Allende was developing her capabilities as a novelist. She created a lush and colorful world where prostitutes, military officers, priests, communists, and insurgents converge. The story also drew inspiration from Allende’s own experiences as a journalist and a civilian during Pinochet’s regime. The niece of deposed Chilean President Salvador Allende, she found a conduit in Irene.

Like The House of the Spirits , Allende’s sophomore novel is a homage to her home country, its colorful people, diverse landscape, and even its tumultuous history. Through Irene and Francisco’s sleuthing – and their developing romance – Allende captured a dark phase in contemporary Chilean history. Allende sheds light on the darker sides of our humanity, the side of us that allows some of us to exploit our fellow and turn a blind eye to these inequities and atrocities. Nevertheless, there are still among us who, with courage, are willing to remove the lid and expose these brutalities, even at the expense of their lives. Of Love and Shadows is a compelling and evocative follow-up to Isabel Allende’s successful literary debut. It consolidated her status as a literary star.

“She thought of the magnitude of her loss. She would never again walk the streets of her childhood, or hear her language spoken as she loved it; she would not see the outline of her sweet land’s mountain at dusk; she would not be lulled by the song of its rivers; gone would be the aroma of sweet basil in her kitchen, of rain evaporating from her roof tiles.” ~  Isabel Allende, Of Love and Shadows

Author:  Isabel Allende Translator (from Spanish): Margaret Sayers Peden Publisher:  Black Swan Books Publishing Date:  1988 (1984) No. of Pages:  298 Genre:  Magical Realism, Historical, Romance

Set in a country of arbitrary arrests, sudden disappearances and summary executions, Isabel Allende’s magical novel tells of the passionate affair of two people prepared to risk everything for the sake of justice and truth: Irene  Beltrán, a reporter, comes from a wealthy background; Francisco Leal, a young photographer secretly engaged in undermining the military dictatorship, is strongly attracted by her beauty. It does not matter that her fiancé is an army captain: each time Francisco accompanies her on a magazine assignment, he falls more deeply in love with her.

When they go to investigate the mysterious case of Evangelina Ranquileo, a girl suffering from spectacular fits which are rumoured to have miraculous powers, the arrival of soldiers adds a sinister aspect to the mystery. And then Evangelina disappears. Irene and Francisco, in trying to trace her and indict the Junta, become engulfed in a vortex of terror and violence.

About the Author

To learn more about the prolific Chilean writer Isabel Allende, please click  here .

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4 thoughts on “ book review # 501: of love and shadows ”.

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I’m interested in reading this, and now my eyes are opened to other works of Isabel Allende.

Like Liked by 2 people

I hope you do give her works a try. I loved The House of the Spirits.

Like Liked by 1 person

I saw good reviews about that and it’s lined up now in my To Read.

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Of Love and Shadows

Isabel Allende | 4.19 | 24,052 ratings and reviews

Ranked #81 in Latin , Ranked #100 in Spanish

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Of Love and Shadows

Isabel allende. alfred a. knopf, $17.95 (274pp) isbn 978-0-394-54962-0.

Reviewed on: 03/31/1987

Genre: Fiction

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• Of Love and Shadows

By Isabel Allende

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9781471173455

Isabel Allende

Scribner UK

03 May 2018

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About The Book

About the author.

Born in Peru and raised in Chile, Isabel Allende is the author of a number of bestselling and critically acclaimed books, including The House of the Spirits , Of Love and Shadows , Eva Luna , The Stories of Eva Luna , Paula , The Japanese Lover , In the Midst of Winter , A Long Petal of the Sea , The Soul of a Woman , Violeta , and The Wind Knows My Name . Her books have been translated into more than thirty-five languages and have sold more than 77 million copies worldwide. She is the recipient of the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and she divides her time between California and Chile.

Product Details

• Publisher: Atria Books (March 29, 2016)
• Length: 336 pages
• ISBN13: 9781501117046

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• Fiction > Magical Realism
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Raves and Reviews

“Allende is a smashing storyteller who brings the most minor characters vividly to life. A tale of love and political commitment.”

– Publishers Weekly

“Of Love and Shadows has all the ingredients of excellent fiction: tense drama, rich detail and characterization, and timeless themes.”

– San Diego Tribune

“Isabel Allende is a writer of deep conviction, but she knows that in the end it is people, not issues, who matter most. The people in Of Love and Shadows are so real, their triumphs and defeats are so faithful to the truth of human existence, that we see the world in miniature. This is precisely what fiction should do.”

– Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post

“Allende has demonstrated that she is, beyond question, one of the great Latin American writers of today…It is a rare and exciting experience to discover the work of a writer as good as Isabel Allende.... Allende’s writing...is so warm, so human, so filled with love for her characters and her country, that in the end human nature, in its goodness and its strength, counteracts the horror and casts light and love where before there was only shadow.”

– Cleveland Plain Dealer

“There is wit and romance in Of Love and Shadows, as well as a hard, gritty edge. Allende’s second novel is a major achievement and worth anyone’s time.”

– Milwaukee Journal

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Home / Find a book / Of Love and Shadows

Of Love and Shadows

By Isabel Allende

New York Times bestseller Isabel Allende’s Of Love and Shadows is a moving tale of love, bravery and tragedy.

Oundle Crime

Published in 1982, at the height of General Pinochet’s dictatorship of Chile, this story centres around the disappearance of a young girl, who is believed to have miraculous powers. A reporter and a photographer go to investigate and find themselves entangled with the armed forces, police and others aligned with the military junta. It’s a powerful story which is so beautifully written that I'm now determined to read more by this author. Juno

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Book review: 'The Mighty Red' by Louise Erdrich

By JoAnn Greco

Populated by a handful of middle-aged couples, their conflicted offspring, and an assortment of Dickensian teachers and town officials, The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich, A&S '79 (MA), is an ode to both the fragility of romantic love and our natural world.

Maybe that's why the book club in which many of the story's strong women cross paths first reads like you-go-girl memoir Eat, Pray, Love and then the postapocalyptic novel The Road . As the selections suggest, the time is the late-aughts of the 21st- century. The setting is rural North Dakota's Red River Valley, not far from the Canadian border, an ag-centric environment awash in underwater farms and failing banks. At the narrative's center, Erdrich has placed a bewitching high school senior named Kismet with at least three troubled teenage boys eating out of her capable hands. One of them, Gary, is burdened by a tragic secret that everyone (but the reader) sorta knows about and a mom, Winnie, who believes her son must have a guardian angel.

Might Kismet be the personification of that divine spirit?

Deftly written, the novel is sprinkled with stop-you-in-your-tracks sentences ("the sky had that hot blue eloquence of summer") and chortleworthy passages, such as one in which Kismet receives yet another postcard from a beau. It's coded in three bland sentences that they've agreed will stand in for three hotter sentiments: simple enough to remember that Kismet has long since swallowed the translation. The idea "had sounded romantic when they thought it up," Erdrich writes. "Now she wished they'd added more phrases, even though she'd have had to eat a bigger piece of paper."

2024 Kirkus Prize Finalists

Pulitzer prize-winning minneapolis author louise erdrich announces new book.

Love reveals itself throughout by other codes, too: via flushes and pet names, silent yearnings and easy acceptances. Delivered in short chapters and six distinctive parts— the first three introducing the town's characters and places, the remainder working through a teenage marriage, unraveled secrets, and reunited lovers— The Mighty Red is a moving read about a group of ordinary people. Like the native weeds that pop up so often in the book, they may be underappreciated, but they're resilient and worth saving.

Posted in Arts+Culture

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Friday, September 13, 2024

‘Sign the BELA Bill’: EFF and GOOD party urge Ramaphosa to ignore threats

President Cyril Ramaphosa is set to sign the divisive Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Bill into law on Friday. File Picture: David Ritchie

Published 13h ago

The Economic Freedom Fighters has urged President Cyril Ramaphosa to sign the divisive Basic Education Laws Amendment (BELA) Bill into law at the Union Buildings on Friday.

IOL has previously reported that Ramaphosa is set to sign the controversial BELA Bill into law at the Union Buildings, a move which has upset other parties in the Government of National Unity, particularly the Democratic Alliance (DA) which has threatened to go to court.

The BELA Bill amends sections of the South African Schools Act of 1996 (SASA) and the Employment of Educators Act, 1998 (EEA) to account for developments in the education landscape since the enactment of the original legislation.

On the eve of the scheduled signing, EFF national spokesperson, Leigh-Ann Mathys said South Africa needs the BELA Bill.

“The BELA Bill introduces a suite of amendments to address systematic inequalities of basic education in South Africa. The DA is vehemently opposed to the Bill because of its inherent hatred of the African child,” said Mathys.

“We particularly support the fact that heads of departments will now be given the final authority to determine the admission and language policies at schools. The school governing bodies are currently solely responsible for this, and this has enabled them to use this power to exclude African learners and entrench racism at these schools.

“This power has been used as a tool in the hands of white supremacists to isolate African languages, and exclude African children from attending public schools that were formerly exclusively white,” she said.

On the other hand, the GOOD party led by Minister Patricia de Lille has also thrown its weight behind the BELA Bill.

“Most of the opposition to the Bill has been caused by the typical mass-hysteria of the DA. This does very little to address the real educational challenges faced by the majority of South Africans,” secretary general of GOOD, Brett Herron told IOL.

“Education is a serious issue and there is no time for political games and disinformation, even more so now that the DA finds themselves in the GNU. Using vague, empty threats of instability in government is childish and reflects very poor leadership by those who are supposed to be working for all South Africans.”

Herron said what the Bill tries to achieve is “largely sensible”, and in line with the Constitution and the judgments of the courts.

“In the main, GOOD supports the BELA Bill. However, the Bill itself is inadequate to solve the predominant issue in South Africa’s education system: poor quality infrastructure, teaching and teaching resources,” he said.

“The BELA Bill is a small step forward. But the fight must still go on for the true fulfilment of the right of access to adequate education for every child.”

Earlier, IOL reported that DA spokesperson Willie Aucamp said the president is threatening the GNU which was formed after the May 29 general elections when the ANC lost its majority.

“It is very important to realise that the DA is not threatening to exit the Government of National Unity. The threat to the GNU currently is from the president’s side. The president knew how we and other parties feel about this and he decided to carry on, irrespective of our feelings.

“So it is the ANC that is, in their actions, being a threat to the GNU. We must protect this GNU at all costs and the Democratic Alliance will look at all the options available, plus, should this be signed into law, we will take this to court. We will take this to the Constitutional Court if needs be. We will look at the options available to us,” said Aucamp.

On the other hand, civil rights group AfriForum threatened that it will proceed with legal steps as soon as Ramaphosa signs the BELA Bill.

“AfriForum views the Basic Education Laws Amendment Bill (BELA) as an attempt at cultural ethnic cleansing by the ANC government, as the implementation of the Bill will enable the destruction of a linguistic and cultural community’s schools, thereby jeopardising the group’s cultural existence,” said Alana Bailey, head of cultural affairs at AfriForum.

AfriForum made the announcement during a joint media conference alongside Solidarity, Solidarity Helping Hand, the Skoleondersteuningsentrum (SOS) and the Federasie van Afrikaanse Kultuurvereniginge (FAK) on Wednesday.

According to Bailey, over the years, thousands of members of AfriForum and the wider public have pledged their support to AfriForum’s sharp opposition to the Bill.

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‘of dogs and men’ review: a thoughtful and quietly powerful israeli docudrama explores the aftermath of oct. 7.

Director Dani Rosenberg ('The Vanishing Soldier') shot his latest feature at the Nir Oz kibbutz just weeks after the attacks that ignited the current Israel-Hamas war.

By Jordan Mintzer

Jordan Mintzer

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It hasn’t even been a year since Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israeli soldiers and civilians on the other side of the Gaza border, igniting a long and deadly conflict that is still very much ongoing. And yet, someone has already decided to go and shoot a movie about what happened.

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These are some of the many questions that one can, and should, ask before seeing Of Dogs and Men ( Al klavim veanashim ), writer-director Dani Rosenberg’s quietly harrowing account of the Oct. 7 massacre and its many victims. Neither fiction nor documentary, but somewhere in between, the small-scale feature follows a lone teenage girl, Dar (Ori Avinoam), who returns to the kibbutz from which she narrowly escaped in order to search for her lost dog.

Rosenberg uses that simple premise to explore the ruins of what was once a peaceful rural community, while also shedding light on the bombings that have been killing civilians in the neighboring Gaza Strip. For a conflict in which many people feel obliged to take sides, the director adapts a more humanistic approach, showing how wars can be completely indiscriminate when it comes to the killing of innocents. And he does so in a way that manages to respect the victims instead of exploiting their memories.

Viewers who sit through Of Dogs and Men , which is barely 80 minutes long and minimalist in terms of narrative, will no doubt find a few bones of contention if they dig hard enough. For instance, much more screen time is given to the Israeli side than the Palestinian one, which is only seen from a safe distance, or else in videos displayed on a phone. But for a director attempting to bear witness to the events of Oct. 7 from the Israeli point of view, Rosenberg makes sure to also reveal the mass destruction taking place just kilometers away in Gaza.

Among the handful of people Dar encounters is Natan Bahat, an 80-something longtime resident of the kibbutz who decided to keep living there, even after his own grandchildren were kidnapped and several of his neighbors were murdered. Natan serves as a heartfelt guide to Dar, driving her around the desolate property and allowing her to spend the night at his house, which was spared by the assailants while other homes were set on fire. The old man also represents the leftist, peace-minded spirit of many Nir Oz residents, telling a story about an Arab friend in Gaza whom he sadly hasn’t heard from since the war started.

Rosenberg, whose previous features include The Vanishing Soldier and The Death of Cinema and My Father Too , is less interested in politics, or exploring the root causes of the unending Israeli-Palestinian conflict, than in putting a human face on tragedy. Dar’s brief conversations — with soldiers, forensic pathologists, volunteers, a kindergarten teacher — give us hints of the true horrors they have been through. The setting is real as well, offering glimpses of a bucolic community that was suddenly interrupted and then completely abandoned.

Despite the intensity of what we’re seeing, there are no easy sentiments or pathos-ridden scenes in Of Dogs and Men , but rather the desire to capture the aftermath of the attacks as earnestly as possible. This includes inserting videos that Dar scrolls through on her phone, where we see terrifying images of the massacre in Israel but also of the unrelenting bombings in Gaza — ones that Dar witnesses from afar as she wanders.

The director further explores the Palestinian side in two scenes. In one, Dar overhears a journalist talking to a man in Gaza who lost nearly two dozen family members, stating their names and ages out loud. In the other, which is the movie’s only true flight of fancy, Dar dreams of her dog befriending a Palestinian boy who has to hide from the bombs being dropped around him. That sequence is done using animation, and while it temporarily distracts us from the film’s more sober realism, it provides a touching vision of a child seeking respite.

Dar is constantly seeking respite as well, and her day-long journey allows us to grasp the weight of what she and others have been going through, even if it’s impossible to put ourselves in their place. Of Dogs and Men is ultimately a small movie, modest in means and surely imperfect. But it strives hard to do what the writer George Eliot once said all art should do, which is to extend our sympathies.

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