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In typical Allende fashion, Portrait in Sepia is crammed with love, desire, tragedy, and dark family secrets, all played out against the dramatic backdrop of revolutionary Chile. Our heroine Aurora del Valle's mother is a Chilean-Chinese beauty, while her father is a dissolute scion of the wealthy and powerful del Valle family. At the heart of Aurora's slow, painful re-creation of her childhood towers one of Allende's greatest fictional creations, the heroine's grandmother, Paulina del Valle. An "astute, bewigged Amazon with a gluttonous appetite," Paulina holds both the del Valle family and Allende's novel together as she presides over Aurora's adolescence in a haze of pastries, taffeta, and overweening love.
One of the most interesting aspects of the novel is Allende's decision to turn her heroine into a photographer: "through photography and the written word I try desperately to conquer the transitory nature of my existence, to trap moments before they evanesce, to untangle the confusion of my past." There is little confusion in Allende's elegantly crafted and hugely enjoyable novel. --Jerry Brotton, Amazon.co.uk
In nineteenth-century Chile, Aurora del Valle suffers a brutal trauma that erases all recollections of the first five years of her life. Raised by her regal and ambitious grandmother Paulina del Valle, Aurora grows up in a privileged environment but is tormented by horrible nightmares. When she is forced to recognize her betrayal at the hands of the man she loves, and to cope with the resulting solitude, she explores the mystery of her past.
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Best selling international author, Isabel Allende tackles her homeland head-on in this staggering, epic romance. Portrait in Sepia is both a magnificent historical novel set at the end of the nineteenth century in Chile and a marvellous family saga peopled by characters from Daughter of Fortune and The House of the Spirits, two of Allende's most celebrated novels.As a young girl, Aurora del Valle suffered a brutal trauma that has shaped her character and erased from her mind all recollection of the first five years of her life. Raised by her ambitious grandmother, the regal and commanding Paulina del Valle, she grows up in a privileged environment, free of the limitations that circumscribe the lives of women at that time, but tormented by terrible nightmares. When she finds herself alone at the end of an unhappy love affair, she decides to explore the mystery of her past, to discover what it was, exactly, all those years ago, that had such a devastating effect on her young life.Richly detailed, epic in scope, this engrossing story of the dark power of hidden secrets is intimate in its probing of human character, and thrilling in the way it illuminates the complexity of family ties. Allende tackles her homeland in this romance. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780007123018
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Book Description Paperback / softback. Condition: New. New copy - Usually dispatched within 4 working days. Best selling international author, Isabel Allende tackles her homeland head-on in this staggering, epic romance. Seller Inventory # B9780007123018
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Brand New. 320 pages. 7.76x5.08x1.06 inches. In Stock. Seller Inventory # __0007123019
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