The Stories of Eva Luna

By Isabel Allende

INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE JAPANESE LOVER
A captivating collection of short fiction by one of the most beloved writers of our time

Eva Luna is a young woman whose powers as a storyteller bring her friendship and love. Lying in bed with her lover, European refugee and journalist Rolf Carlé, Eva answers his request for a story 'you have never told anyone before' with these twenty-three samples of her vibrant artistry. Interweaving the real and the magical, she explores love, vengeance, compassion and female power, depicting worlds that are at once poignantly familiar and intriguingly new.

Rendered in her sumptuously imagined, uniquely lyrical style, The Stories of Eva Luna is a cornerstone of Isabel Allende’s work, and in her character Eva Luna she creates a modern-day Scheherazade.

'Eva Luna's stories are delicate, their images akin to poetry . . . Perfectly crafted and thematically rich' Barbara Kingsolver

'Vital and compelling' The Times

'Arresting and altogether distinctive, powerful and haunting; a collection to be read aloud and repeated for generations' Los Angeles Times

'Enchanting, magnificent. Absolute magic on every level' Cosmopolitan

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Release date: Jul 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9781471165672

Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende is the author of twelve works of fiction, including the New York Times bestsellers Maya’s Notebook, Island Beneath the Sea, Inés of My Soul, Daughter of Fortune, and a novel that has become a world-renowned classic, The House of the Spirits. Born in Peru and raised in Chile, she lives in California.

Reviews for The Stories of Eva Luna

[ehys0212 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is in my top ten list for all time favorites.

[jbarringer-2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really liked this collection of stories. They remind me of The Bridge of San Luis Rey (Thornton Wilder), but with less connection between the various characters. I liked that there still are connections between some of the characters so that they are all in the same fictional space, even if their stories don't all intersect.

[donp_47 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is only the second collection of short stories that I've ever read in order, cover to cover, if that tells you anything.

[judithann_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Some really good stories about life in South-America, mostly in the past. It's a book to dip into, not to try and read in one go, because there are too many very different stories. Some are OK, some are brilliant.

[bkinetic_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

These richly entertaining stories have many passionate full-blooded heroines and lots of interesting twists. If you like short stories where nothing much happens overtly and the action is subtle, perhaps even barely perceptible, these are not the stories for you. So many of the stories are the literary equivalents of full body slams that it would be difficult to read them in quick succession. You at least have to stop and catch your breath before moving on the the next one.

[dylanwolf · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

These short stories were published three years after Isabel Allende's novel Eva Luna and extend her protagonist's abilities as a story teller in the style of Scheherazade in the Arabian Nights. Allende is a magical realist writer whose stories are sensuous and languid with strong female characters. It's been quite a time since I read this so I have little recall of the details of the stories. But I remember them as being typically South American with that sense of ever expanding time and the undertow of tradition overlaid with both poverty and fading grandeur.

[fist_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Is this the "50 Shades of Grey" of the early '90s? Great scene setting in a romantic South America in everyone of these short stories. Halfway through, I started to find the themes repetitive and a bit disturbing: beautiful women are invariably coupled with much older, more powerful men, and true love and passion blossom after a first violent intercourse, ie rape. Maybe female readers will have an other opinion; it felt a lot like this collection of short stories was intended for them.