Violeta

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • This sweeping novel from the author of A Long Petal of the Sea tells the epic story of Violeta Del Valle, a woman whose life spans one hundred years and bears witness to the greatest upheavals of the twentieth century. “An immersive saga about a passion-filled life.”—People Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first girl in a family with five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth. Through her father’s prescience, the family will come through that crisis unscathed, only to face a new one as the Great Depression transforms the genteel city life she has known. Her family loses everything and is forced to retreat to a wild and beautiful but remote part of the country. There, she will come of age, and her first suitor will come calling. She tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves above all others, recounting times of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Her life is shaped by some of the most important events of history: the fight for women’s rights, the rise and fall of tyrants, and ultimately not one, but two pandemics. Through the eyes of a woman whose unforgettable passion, determination, and sense of humor carry her through a lifetime of upheaval, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional.

_______________ THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING NOVEL FROM LITERARY LEGEND ISABEL ALLENDE _______________ 'Epic, beautifully crafted . . . Gripping from start to finish' DAILY TELEGRAPH 'A moving exploration of both the pain and the freedom of being an outsider' NEW STATESMAN 'A new novel by Isabel Allende is always a treat' DAILY MAIL _______________ One extraordinary woman. One hundred years of history. One unforgettable story. Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first daughter in a family of five boisterous sons. From the start, her life is marked by extraordinary events. The ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth. Told in the form of a letter to someone Violeta loves above all others, this is the story of a hundred-year life – of devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Bearing witness to a century of history, it is a life shaped by the fight for women's rights, the rise and fall of tyrants and, ultimately, not one but two pandemics. Through the eyes of a woman whose unforgettable passion, determination and sense of humour will carry her through a lifetime of upheaval, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional. _______________

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER THE WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK OF 2021 A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK WINNER of the Isabel Allende Most Inspirational Fiction Award, She Reads Best of 2021 Awards • FINALIST for the 2022 Southern Book Prize • LONGLISTED for Crook’s Corner Book Prize • NOMINEE for 2021 GoodReads Choice Award in Debut Novel and Historical Fiction A sweeping, masterful debut about a daughter's fateful choice, a mother motivated by her own past, and a family legacy that begins in Cuba before either of them were born In present-day Miami, Jeanette is battling addiction. Daughter of Carmen, a Cuban immigrant, she is determined to learn more about her family history from her reticent mother and makes the snap decision to take in the daughter of a neighbor detained by ICE. Carmen, still wrestling with the trauma of displacement, must process her difficult relationship with her own mother while trying to raise a wayward Jeanette. Steadfast in her quest for understanding, Jeanette travels to Cuba to see her grandmother and reckon with secrets from the past destined to erupt. From 19th-century cigar factories to present-day detention centers, from Cuba to Mexico, Gabriela Garcia's Of Women and Salt is a kaleidoscopic portrait of betrayals—personal and political, self-inflicted and those done by others—that have shaped the lives of these extraordinary women. A haunting meditation on the choices of mothers, the legacy of the memories they carry, and the tenacity of women who choose to tell their stories despite those who wish to silence them, this is more than a diaspora story; it is a story of America’s most tangled, honest, human roots.

suddenly I should have stayed at home, I should have stayed at home, I should have stayed at home, for some time, seconds, hours, I can do nothing, suddenly I stop Violeta is driving along a lonely stretch of late-night motorway, in the midst of a fearsome storm. When her tired eyes close for just a second, her car veers off the road, rolls down a muddy embankment, over and over, and comes to rest on an empty stretch of sodden ground. And as she lies amid the wreckage of her car, suspended between this world and the next, Violeta's life will quite literally flash before her eyes . . . Scenes from her past overlap with what happened right before the accident: her upbringing with her distant, critical mother; her father's mysterious double-life; her troubled relationship with her daughter; her life on the road as she drives between waxing product-selling appointments with breaks at motorway service stations, the abuse from other travellers mocking her size, the alcohol, the risky encounters with lorry drivers on filthy public toilet floors... Violeta Among the Stars weaves memories and feelings as Violeta reflects on her death, her life, her reality and her dreams. An astonishing portrait of a seemingly insignificant life, from one of Portugal's greatest living writers. Translated from the Portuguese by Ángel Gurría-Quintana Ángel Gurría-Quintana is a historian, journalist and literary translator from Spanish and Portuguese. He writes regularly for the books pages of the Financial Times, and his translations include the anthology Other Carnivals: Short Stories from Brazil and The Return, by Dulce Maria Cardoso. With the support of the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union

From an acclaimed and powerful talent in historical fiction, a literary historical novel set in a Bohemian enclave of Vienna about love, freedom, and what constitutes a family—now in paperback! Set in Vienna from 1910 to 1946, All of You Every Single One is an atmospheric, original, and deeply moving novel about family, freedom, and how true love might survive impossible odds. Julia Lindqvist, a woman unhappily married to a famous Swedish playwright, leaves her husband to begin a passionate affair with a female tailor named Eve. The pair run away together and settle in the more liberal haven of Vienna, where they fall in love, navigate the challenges of their newfound independence, and find community in the city’s Jewish quarter. But Julia’s yearning for a child throws their fragile happiness into chaos and threatens to destroy her life and the lives of those closest to her. Ada Bauer’s wealthy industrialist family have sent her to Dr. Freud in the hope that he can cure her mutism—and do so without a scandal. But help will soon come for Ada from an unexpected place, changing many lives irrevocably. Through the lives of her queer characters, and against the changing backdrop of one of the greatest cities of the age, Hitchman asks what it’s like to live through oppression, how personal decisions become political, and how far one will go to protect the ones they love. Moving across Europe and through decades, Hitchman’s sophomore novel is an intensely poignant portrait of life and love on the fringes of history.

This book explores Violeta Parra’s visual art, focusing on her embroideries (arpilleras), paintings, papier-mâché collages and sculptures. Parra is one of Chile’s great artists and musicians, yet her visual art is relatively unknown. Her fusion of complex imagery from Chilean folk music and culture with archetypes in Western art results in a hybrid body of work. Parra’s hybridism is the story of this book, in which Dillon explores Parra’s ‘painted songs’, the ekphrastic nature of her creations and the way ideas translate from her music and poetry into her visual art. The book identifies three intellectual currents in Parra’s art: its relationship to motifs from Chilean popular and oral culture; its relationship to the work of other modern artists; and its relationship to the themes of her protest music. It argues that Parra’s commentaries on inequality and injustice have as much resonance today as they did fifty years ago. Dillon also explores the convergence between Parra’s art and the work of other modern twentieth-century artists, considering its links to Surrealism, Pop Art and the Mexican Muralism Movement. Parra exhibited in open-air art fairs, museums and cultural centres as well as in prestigious venues such as Museu de Arte Moderna do Brasil (the Museum of Modern Art in Brazil) and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (Museum of Decorative Arts) in Paris. This book reflects on Parra’s socially-engaged work as it was expressed through her exhibitions in these centres as well as in through own cultural centre La carpa de la reina.

One of the leading figures in Latin American folk music and art during her lifetime, Violeta Parra was a vital force in the artistic, musical, visual, cultural, and social cultural production of the Chilean 1960s. Fifty years after her death, she continues to deeply influence artists of the present day. This book revisits Parra’s work and legacy to illustrate her global impact across artistic and political boundaries. Contributors offer multi-disciplinary perspectives that delineate how Parra contributed to shaping and—at the same time—antagonizing, societal processes in mid-20th century Chile.