Announced February 17, 2000
About the Book
Isabel Allende's Daughter of Fortune—her first work of fiction in six years—is a rich and spirited historical novel. Set at the exciting midpoint of the Nineteenth Century, and spanning four continents, this eagerly awaited novel, translated from the Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden, brims with Allende's characteristic magic and once again proves that this beloved novelist can "hold the world spellbound with her tales" (Miami Herald).
The Daughter of Fortune is Eliza Sommers, a young Chilean girl of mysterious origins. Left as a baby on the doorstep of the Sommers, an English family living in Valparaiso, she is adopted by the spinster Rose Sommers and raised to be a proper English lady. But an equally strong childhood influence is Mama Fresia, the Sommers' Indian servant, at whose apron strings Eliza learns the culinary and medicinal secrets of an ancient culture—secrets that will serve her well as the adventure of her life unfolds.
When she is not yet sixteen, Eliza falls in love with Joaquin Andieta, a poor yet terribly proud underling at her uncle Jeremy's British Import and Export Company. Knowing that Rose has set her sights on a more socially exalted marriage of Eliza, the girl conducts her love affair on the sly. When Joaquin announces he must journey to California to make his fortune in the gold rush, Eliza agrees to wait for this return. But, two months after his departure, she discovers she is pregnant with his child.
Eliza knows that the only solution to her predicament is to follow Joaquin to California—hardly an easy feat for a respectable girl with no money. With the help of a Chinese cook, Eliza stows away on a northbound ship. The sea voyage alone nearly kills her, and only through the ministrations of Tao Chi'en, the Chinese cook who is really an accomplished physician, does she survive both a miscarriage and the passage. Somewhat unwillingly Tao Chi'en becomes her protector when they reach San Francisco, and the friendship they forge will prove the only sure footing in each of their shifting destinies.
Once in California, Eliza, disguised as a boy, sets off the find Joaquin. Her search leads her into the dangerous and daring world along the mother lode, and introduces her to a life unimaginable during her sheltered Chilean girlhood. Tao Chi'en, too, witnesses the brutality and promise of the Golden Mountain, his future irrevocably altered by the coarse reality of this imperfect new world.
Characters surface and resurface, reinventing themselves to accommodate the exigencies of life. Crossed paths and missed opportunities abound, as the inextricable fortunes of Allende's vividly portrayed cast play out history. Indeed, in Daughter of Fortune Allende brings a stirring immediacy to history, and once again validates the appraisal that she is "one of the most important novelists to emerge from Latin American in the past decade" (Boston Globe).
About the Author
It was fifteen years ago that, Isabel Allende took the literary world by storm with the publication of The House of the Spirits, a novel which chronicled four generations of a Chilean family against the backdrop of Chile's brutal history. The Times of London heralded Allende as having "the rare ability to blend fantasy and legend with political fact and a well-plotted narrative to produce an enchanted world unlike anything else in contemporary fiction." The New York Times called the book "a unique achievement, both personal witness and possible allegory of the past, present and future of Latin America."
Allende followed her impressive debut with Of Love and Shadows, Eva Luna, The Stories of Eva Luna, and The Infinite Plan, all bestsellers around the world. Critical accolades have greeted the publication of each of Allende's books, which have commonly been cited for their compassion, imagination, humor and originality. The House of the Spirits was made into a feature film with an all-star cast headed by Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, and Glenn Close. Of Love and Shadows, starring Antonio Banderas, was released a year later.
Isabel Allende was born in Lima, Peru, in 1942 and raised in Chile, Bolivia, Europe, and the Middle East, as her peripatetic family followed her stepfather's diplomatic career. She worked as a journalist in Chile until the 1973 military coup. Allende fled her homeland, settling in Venezuela with her husband, son and daughter. "I felt, as many Chileans did, that my life had been cut into pieces, and that I had to start over again," she recalls.
Isolated from her family, and in particular from her beloved grandfather who was close to death, Allende began to write a long letter in which she reassured him that the would always be kept alive in her memories. That letter grew into The House of the Spirits.
PAULA, Allende's first non-fiction book is a deeply moving memoir inspired by the tragic fatal illness of her 28 year-old daughter. It, too, began as a letter from mother to daughter that becomes a meditation on a mother's life and a daughter's death. It became an international bestseller when it was published three years ago.
Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses which celebrates the pleasures of the sensual life through food, stories, and personal anecdotes, was published in April 1998. Daughter of Fortune was published October 10, 1999.
Isabel Allende now lives in the San Francisco area with her American husband and their respective extended families.
Book Reviews
"Allende has created a masterpiece of historical fiction that is passionate, adventurous and brilliantly insightful. And right up to the end, it's suspenseful and surprising. This one's a gem."
— Denver Post
"Allende expands her geographical boundaries in this sprawling, engrossing historical novel flavored by four cultures..."
— Kirkus Reviews Review
"A passionate storyteller... Her writing is lyrical, mystical, ribald, funny." — Miami Herald
"Like a slow, seductive lover, Allende teases, tempts and titillates with mesmerizing stories."
— Washington Post
"Brilliant"
— New York Times Book Review
"A Magician with words."
— Publishers Weekly
Get more resources on Daughter of Fortune, an Oprah's Book Club selection.
View the Complete Oprah's Book Club List.
Isabel Allende's Daughter of Fortune—her first work of fiction in six years—is a rich and spirited historical novel. Set at the exciting midpoint of the Nineteenth Century, and spanning four continents, this eagerly awaited novel, translated from the Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden, brims with Allende's characteristic magic and once again proves that this beloved novelist can "hold the world spellbound with her tales" (Miami Herald).
The Daughter of Fortune is Eliza Sommers, a young Chilean girl of mysterious origins. Left as a baby on the doorstep of the Sommers, an English family living in Valparaiso, she is adopted by the spinster Rose Sommers and raised to be a proper English lady. But an equally strong childhood influence is Mama Fresia, the Sommers' Indian servant, at whose apron strings Eliza learns the culinary and medicinal secrets of an ancient culture—secrets that will serve her well as the adventure of her life unfolds.
When she is not yet sixteen, Eliza falls in love with Joaquin Andieta, a poor yet terribly proud underling at her uncle Jeremy's British Import and Export Company. Knowing that Rose has set her sights on a more socially exalted marriage of Eliza, the girl conducts her love affair on the sly. When Joaquin announces he must journey to California to make his fortune in the gold rush, Eliza agrees to wait for this return. But, two months after his departure, she discovers she is pregnant with his child.
Eliza knows that the only solution to her predicament is to follow Joaquin to California—hardly an easy feat for a respectable girl with no money. With the help of a Chinese cook, Eliza stows away on a northbound ship. The sea voyage alone nearly kills her, and only through the ministrations of Tao Chi'en, the Chinese cook who is really an accomplished physician, does she survive both a miscarriage and the passage. Somewhat unwillingly Tao Chi'en becomes her protector when they reach San Francisco, and the friendship they forge will prove the only sure footing in each of their shifting destinies.
Once in California, Eliza, disguised as a boy, sets off the find Joaquin. Her search leads her into the dangerous and daring world along the mother lode, and introduces her to a life unimaginable during her sheltered Chilean girlhood. Tao Chi'en, too, witnesses the brutality and promise of the Golden Mountain, his future irrevocably altered by the coarse reality of this imperfect new world.
Characters surface and resurface, reinventing themselves to accommodate the exigencies of life. Crossed paths and missed opportunities abound, as the inextricable fortunes of Allende's vividly portrayed cast play out history. Indeed, in Daughter of Fortune Allende brings a stirring immediacy to history, and once again validates the appraisal that she is "one of the most important novelists to emerge from Latin American in the past decade" (Boston Globe).
About the AuthorIt was fifteen years ago that, Isabel Allende took the literary world by storm with the publication of The House of the Spirits, a novel which chronicled four generations of a Chilean family against the backdrop of Chile's brutal history. The Times of London heralded Allende as having "the rare ability to blend fantasy and legend with political fact and a well-plotted narrative to produce an enchanted world unlike anything else in contemporary fiction." The New York Times called the book "a unique achievement, both personal witness and possible allegory of the past, present and future of Latin America."
Allende followed her impressive debut with Of Love and Shadows, Eva Luna, The Stories of Eva Luna, and The Infinite Plan, all bestsellers around the world. Critical accolades have greeted the publication of each of Allende's books, which have commonly been cited for their compassion, imagination, humor and originality. The House of the Spirits was made into a feature film with an all-star cast headed by Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, and Glenn Close. Of Love and Shadows, starring Antonio Banderas, was released a year later.
Isabel Allende was born in Lima, Peru, in 1942 and raised in Chile, Bolivia, Europe, and the Middle East, as her peripatetic family followed her stepfather's diplomatic career. She worked as a journalist in Chile until the 1973 military coup. Allende fled her homeland, settling in Venezuela with her husband, son and daughter. "I felt, as many Chileans did, that my life had been cut into pieces, and that I had to start over again," she recalls.
Isolated from her family, and in particular from her beloved grandfather who was close to death, Allende began to write a long letter in which she reassured him that the would always be kept alive in her memories. That letter grew into The House of the Spirits.
PAULA, Allende's first non-fiction book is a deeply moving memoir inspired by the tragic fatal illness of her 28 year-old daughter. It, too, began as a letter from mother to daughter that becomes a meditation on a mother's life and a daughter's death. It became an international bestseller when it was published three years ago.
Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses which celebrates the pleasures of the sensual life through food, stories, and personal anecdotes, was published in April 1998. Daughter of Fortune was published October 10, 1999.
Isabel Allende now lives in the San Francisco area with her American husband and their respective extended families.
Book Reviews
"Allende has created a masterpiece of historical fiction that is passionate, adventurous and brilliantly insightful. And right up to the end, it's suspenseful and surprising. This one's a gem."
— Denver Post
"Allende expands her geographical boundaries in this sprawling, engrossing historical novel flavored by four cultures..."
— Kirkus Reviews Review
"A passionate storyteller... Her writing is lyrical, mystical, ribald, funny." — Miami Herald
"Like a slow, seductive lover, Allende teases, tempts and titillates with mesmerizing stories."
— Washington Post
"Brilliant"
— New York Times Book Review
"A Magician with words."
— Publishers Weekly
Get more resources on Daughter of Fortune, an Oprah's Book Club selection.View the Complete Oprah's Book Club List.
Published 02/17/2000
