BookTalk
BookTalk
Book Talk
with Smiffs book & card store, Nerja
In her latest novel, A
Long Petal Of The
Sea (l), the much-
lauded South
American author
Isabel Allende draws
on the history of
Spaniards fleeing to
the Americas during
and after Spain’s
civil war. The
central characters
are a young, army
doctor, Victor
Dalmau, and pianist
Roser Bruguera, the
pregnant widow of
Victor’s brother. In
1939, they sail with
nearly 2,000 other
Spanish Republicans
to Chile aboard the
SS Winnipeg, a ship
chartered by the
Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, to find a new home in the
promised ‘long petal of sea and wine and snow’. With
reluctance, Victor and Roser marry each other through
necessity. They endure continual disruption throughout their
lives on a continent which is no stranger to political and
economic upheaval, and as struggles between freedom and
repression sweep the world. They always hope to return to
Spain, but the sense of belonging shifts as the years roll by.
to plan and budget for book
ordering.
To literary scholars, one of
the great mysteries in the
history of English literature
is why Cassandra Austen
burned a treasure trove of
letters written by her sister,
the much loved novelist
Jane Austen (1775 – 1817). Gill
Hornby’s novel, Miss Austen
(l), is based on this puzzle. In
1840, 23 years after Jane’s
death, Cassandra returns to
the family home and
discovers the letters
containing secrets that she
believes should never be
revealed. Should she let the
letters colour the memory
of her celebrated sister, or
protect Jane’s reputation?
The novel also skilfully
imagines what the sisters’
relationship could have
been like.
Now here is something
different at the start of a
new year and decade, and
from a debut author: Djinn
Patrol On The Purple Line
(l), by Deepa Anappara.
Djinns are not real; but if
they were, they would only
steal children. Jai, 9, is
addicted to reality police
shows. When a boy at his
school goes missing, Jai
applies the detective skills
he has ‘learned’ from episodes of Police Patrol, enlisting the
help of his friends Pari and Faiz, to pick up the missing boy’s
trail, even when it leads into
dangerous neighbourhoods,
and even to the railway
station at the end of the
Purple Line. But children
are still going missing...
Allende herself is no stranger to the theme of exile. Born in
Peru, she spent most of her childhood in Chile, from where
she was forced to flee upon receiving death threats following
the 1973 coup by the dictator General Augusto Pinochet. Her
reflections on how this and her moving around on the
diplomatic trail
affected her as a
person and a writer
are contained in her
2004 memoir, My
Invented Country.
A Long Petal Of The
Sea leads off this
month’s Soltalk
Hotlist of titles,
some entirely new,
others moving into
small paperback
format for the first
time or being
reissued, sometimes
after years out of
print. All are due for
publication on dates
in January, with
availability in print
this month or in
early February. The
Hotlist helps readers
Nobel laureate and Booker
Prize winner JM Coetzee
follows previous works –
The Childhood of Jesus, and
The Schooldays of Jesus – to
complete this trilogy with
The Death Of Jesus (l).
David is now a tall 10-year-
old, great at football. His
father, Simon, and Bolivar
the dog often watch David
play in the local streets until
Julio, director of an
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