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  • Published: 1 September 2011
  • ISBN: 9780099528562
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 496
  • RRP: $24.00

The House of the Spirits




Allende's magical realist epic is an international classic - 'thick with plot and bristling with characters. A novel to be read for its brilliant craftsmanship and its narrative of inescapable power' El Pais

As a girl, Clara del Valle can read fortunes, make objects move as if they had lives of their own, and predict the future. Following the mysterious death of her sister, Rosa the Beautiful, Clara is mute for nine years. When she breaks her silence, it is to announce that she will be married soon to the stern and volatile landowner Esteban Trueba.

Set in an unnamed Latin American country over three generations, The House of the Spirits is a magnificent epic of a proud and passionate family, secret loves and violent revolution.

  • Published: 1 September 2011
  • ISBN: 9780099528562
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 496
  • RRP: $24.00

About the author

Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende was born in 1942 Lima, Peru. She grew up in Chile and now lives in California.

She is the author of novels The House of the Spirits, Of Love and Shadows, Eva Luna, The Infinite Plan, Paula, Daughter of Fortune, Portrait in Sepia, My Invented Country, Zorro, Inés of My Soul The Sum of Our Days and The Island Beneath the Sea.

Chilean novelist Isabel Allende was a journalist for many years. She began to write fiction in 1981. The result was the worldwide best-seller The House of the Spirits, which was followed by the equally successful Of Love and Shadows and The Stories of Eva Luna (Penguin 1991). Her first work of non-fiction, Paula, was published in 1995 and is a harrowing chronicle of the death of her daughter. Isabel Allende lives in California.

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Praise for The House of the Spirits

Remarkable...a big book that can comprehend the history of a nation, and so many lives, with love

The Times

An exotic vision and a brilliant, impassioned epic

Vogue

Mesmerizing... A novel of force and charm

Washington Post

This is a novel like the novels no one seems to write anymore: thick with plot and bristling with characters who play out their lives over three generations of conflict and reconciliation. A novel to be read for its brilliant craftsmanship and its narrative of inescapable power

El Pais, Madrid

Announcing a truly great read: a novel thick and thrilling, full of fantasy, terror and wit, elaborately crafted yet serious and accurate in its historical and social observations

Die Welt, Berlin

Extraordinary... Powerful... Sharply observant, witty and eloquent

New York Times

Allende is another remarkable storyteller from a continent blessed with many such enchanters . . . Allende has an affection for her characters quite beyond politics, and an estimable ability to bring them to life

Newsday

Intensely moving. Both entertaining and deeply serious

Evening Standard

Remarkable...a big book that can comprehend the history of a nation, and so many lives, with love

The Times

An exotic vision and a brilliant, impassioned epic

Vogue

Mesmerizing... A novel of force and charm

Washington Post

This is a novel like the novels no one seems to write anymore: thick with plot and bristling with characters who play out their lives over three generations of conflict and reconciliation. A novel to be read for its brilliant craftsmanship and its narrative of inescapable power

El Pais, Madrid

Announcing a truly great read: a novel thick and thrilling, full of fantasy, terror and wit, elaborately crafted yet serious and accurate in its historical and social observations

Die Welt, Berlin

Extraordinary... Powerful... Sharply observant, witty and eloquent

New York Times

Allende is another remarkable storyteller from a continent blessed with many such enchanters . . . Allende has an affection for her characters quite beyond politics, and an estimable ability to bring them to life

Newsday

Intensely moving. Both entertaining and deeply serious

Evening Standard