The Wind Knows My Name
A Richard and Judy Book Club Pick
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4.2 • 66 Ratings
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- £7.99
Publisher Description
* ORDER MY NAME IS EMILIA DEL VALLE NOW – THE CAPTIVATING NEW NOVEL FROM ISABEL ALLENDE *
A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK FOR JULY 2024
'A testament to love, survival and sacrifice' HARPER'S BAZAAR
No, we're not lost. The wind knows my name. And yours too.
Vienna, 1938. Five-year-old Samuel Adler boards the last Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria, escaping to England with just a change of clothes and his beloved violin.
Eight decades later, Anita Diaz and her mother flee El Salvador for refuge in the United States, where the new family separation policy lands seven-year-old Anita alone at a camp in Nogales.
Intertwining past and present, this is an unforgettable story of the search for family and home, the extraordinary sacrifices made by parents, and the courage of children to never stop dreaming.
'Allende blends fact and fiction, love and war . . . As you read her escapist tale you develop a richer understanding of the world you inhabit' BRITISH VOGUE
PRAISE FOR THE AUTHOR
'A grand storyteller' KHALED HOSSEINI
'A new novel by Isabel Allende is always a treat' DAILY MAIL
'What a joy it must be to come upon Allende for the first time' COLUM MCCANN
'A global literary great' i
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
What connects a boy fleeing the Nazis on the Kindertransport with a girl born almost a century later in El Salvador? Isabel Allende’s continent-sweeping and decades-spanning novel draws these threads, and many more, together in her typically deft and skilful style. It’s a tale that is part romance, part fierce call for justice and part desperate plea for empathy, all fuelled by Allende’s clear sense of moral duty and her fury at the violence consistently unleashed on the vulnerable across all kinds of societies. Her gift for bringing to life improbably dramatic and passionate characters and sweeping you thrillingly along with them remains undiminished, while the broad scope of the overall story never obstructs the quieter moments of intimacy. This is a work that plunges the depths of heartbreak and despair, but the lasting impression is of love’s steadfastness in the face of impossible cruelty, and an insistence that it is never too late for action.
Customer Reviews
A meaningful title
And an equally profound content. I liked this book for the unusual way to tell a story which manages to liaise so many different elements: social issues, difficult political choices, children abuse, history of distant cultures and the unexplainable, the beliefs, the magic. And most of all, a very personal style.