THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER'One of the strongest and most affecting works
in Allende's long career' New York Times Book Review'A defiantly warm and
funny novel, by somebody who has earned the right to argue that love and
optimism can survive whatever history might throw at us' Daily
TelegraphSeptember 3, 1939, the day of the Spanish exiles' splendid arrival
in Chile, the Second World War broke out in Europe.Victor Dalmau is a young
doctor when he is caught up in the Spanish Civil War, a tragedy that leaves
his life - and the fate of his country - forever changed. Together with his
sister-in-law, the pianist Roser, he is forced out of his beloved Barcelona
and into exile. When opportunity to seek refuge arises, they board a ship
chartered by the poet Pablo Neruda to Chile, the promised 'long petal of
sea and wine and snow'. There, they find themselves enmeshed in a rich web
of characters who come together in love and tragedy over the course of four
generations, destined to witness the battle between freedom and repression
as it plays out across the world.A masterful work of historical fiction
that soars from the Spanish Civil War to the rise and fall of Pinochet, A
Long Petal of the Sea is Isabel Allende at the height of her powers.'An
epic that starts in 1939 and spans decades and continents . . . A masterful
work of historical fiction about hope, exile and belonging, and one that
sheds light on the way we live now' Independent.co.uk 'Full of ambition and
humanity' Sunday Times 'Allende knows that all stories are love stories,
and the greatest love stories are told by time' Colum McCann 'Allende's
style is impressively Olympian and the payoff is remarkable' Guardian 'Epic
in scope, yet intimate in execution' i