Margaret Sayers Peden

The daughter of an African mother she never knew and a white sailor, Zarit - known as Tt - was born a slave on the island of Saint-Domingue. Growing up amid brutality and fear, Tt found solace in the traditional rhythms of African drums and the mysteries of voodoo. Her life changes when twenty-year-old Toulouse Valmorain arrives on the island in 1770 to run his father's plantation, Saint Lazare. Overwhelmed by the challenges of his responsibilities...

"When Isabel Allende's daughter, Paula, became gravely ill and fell into a coma, the author began to write the story of her family for her unconscious child. In the telling, bizarre ancestors appear before our eyes; we hear both delightful and bitter childhood memories, amazing anecdotes of youthful years, and the most intimate secrets passed along in whispers. With Paula, Allende has written a powerful autobiography whose straightforward acceptance...

When fifteen-year-old Alexander Cold accompanies his individualistic grandmother on an expedition to find a humanoid Beast in the Amazon, he experiences ancient wonders and a supernatural world as he tries to avert disaster for the Indians.

A highly personal memoir of exile and homeland by bestselling author Isabel Allende In My Invented Country Isabel Allende evokes the magnificent landscapes of her country, a charming, idiosyncratic Chilean people with a violent history and indomitable spirit, and the politics, religion, myth and magic of her homeland that she carries with her even today. The book circles around two life-changing moments. The assassination of her uncle, Salvador Allende...

"An intoxicating 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 European lover, refugee and journalist Rolf Carle;, 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,...

"Meet New York Times bestselling author Isabel Allende's most enchanting creation, Eva Luna: a lover, a writer, a revolutionary, and above all a storyteller. Eva Luna is the daughter of a professor's assistant and a snake-bitten gardener--born poor, orphaned at an early age, and working as a servant. Eva is a naturally gifted and imaginative storyteller who meets people from all stations and walks of life. Though she has no wealth, she trades her...

Set during the Mexican Revolution, a frustrated spinster, a retired journalist, and a fiery young general are inexplicably drawn together as they face love, death and war.

Translated by Margaret Sayers Peden During a long, lingering lunch at the Automobile Club de France, the elderly Comte de Branly tells a story to a friend, unnamed until the closing pages, who is in fact the first-person narrator of the novel. Branly's story is of a family named Heredia: Hugo, a noted Mexican archaeologist, and his young son, Victor, whom Branly met in Cuernavaca and who became his house guest in Paris. There they are gradually drawn...

In a novel based on the Bible and ancient traditions, Adam and Eve discover the world around them, react to their punishment, and learn to adjust to the outside world, where it is necessary to kill to survive.

"Celestina" is a late 15th century work by Fernando de Rojas that is considered one of the greatest works of Spanish literature, one which marks the transition from the late medieval period and the beginning of the literary renaissance in Spain. The story is concerned with the love affair of Calisto and Melibea. Upon meeting Melibea, Calisto falls madly in love with her. However at first she rejects his advances. Calisto's servant Sempronio introduces...