Eva Luna by Isabel Allende

With a light infusion of magical realism, Isabel Allende tells the picaresque life story of Eva Luna (both luna elements of her name indicate she embodies the essence of womanhood) in an unnamed Latin American country that undergoes historically predictable rounds of dictatorships and revolutions. At times Eva, who becomes fascinated with storytelling at an early age, resembles a character out of Charles Dickens. Orphaned at age six, she is raised by an alcoholic madrina (godmother) and runs away from a cruel patrona when she is nine, falling in with the streetwise Huberto Naranjo, who is destined to become a guerilla leader and her lover. Meanwhile, in post-World War Two Austria Rolf Carlé is being raised by an abusive father who is eventually hanged by his students. Sent to a pseudo-Bavarian village in Latin America known as “La Colonia,” Carlé, who will eventually emerge as Eva’s true love, learns to make cuckoo clocks. In alternating chapters Eva comes of age and maintains her innocence even while living in a brothel, as Rolf rises to prominence as a revolutionary and later a television cameraman. Allende generates a large cast of quirky and fascinating characters, from the kind, hare-lipped Turkish businessman Riad Halabí to the transvestite Mimí, and she involves Eva in menacing adventures that verge on melodrama. In this welter of romance and adventure Allende makes important statements about the human condition and the shifting nature of Latin American politics and revolution.

Author Information

allende Isabel Allende was born in Peru in 1942 but raised in Chile, where her uncle, the socialist Salvador Allende, was to become president. Her father and stepfather were both diplomats. She attended English boarding schools and worked as a journalist and in television for ten years in Chile (1964-74). After her uncle was assassinated in a CIA-backed coup in 1973, Isabel migrated to Venezuela where she worked as a journalist for another ten years. Her first novel, House of the Spirits, appeared in Spanish in 1982 (it was translated into English three years later and has now appeared in nearly thirty languages). Her second novel, Of Love and Shadows, appeared in 1984. Both novels have been made into successful movies. Allende had a daughter and a son by her first marriage (her daughter died of a rare blood disease in 1992). In 1988 she remarried and moved to California, where she now lives (in San Rafael). Two years after publication of Eva Luna in 1987, her Stories of Eva Luna was published. Her ten additional books include a memoir, My Invented Country (2003), and a trilogy for young adults. Her most recent novel, Inés of My Soul, appeared in 2006. Allende acknowledges Colombian novelist and father of magic realism Gabriel García-Márquez as her mentor. She is regarded as the most widely read Latin American woman writer in the world.

Photo credit: Lori Barre

Discussion Questions

1. In an interview published in 1991 Allende defined Magic Realism as “a literary device or a way of seeing in which there is space for the invisible forces that move the world: dreams, legends, myths, passions, history.” Why do you suppose she includes history in this list? Where do you see evidence of Magic Realism in Eva Luna? Do you think this technique or “way of seeing” makes her writing more “literary” (that is, more likely to be regarded as “serious fiction”) than would otherwise be the case?

2. An avowed feminist, Isabel Allende often critiques male dominance in her fiction, but she generally balances favorable with unfavorable male characters. What kinds of behavior does she tend to criticize even in male characters she does not portray as out-and-out villains? What traits does she celebrate most in her male characters? Why do you think she ends up with Rolf as her lover instead of Huberto?

3. Do you think of Eva Luna as a credible character, or does she strike you as some sort of stereotypical female superhero, perhaps a heroine drawn from TV soap opera (very popular throughout Latin America) or melodrama? Or is this really a useful question to ask about her? What do you think Allende intends to achieve with this character?

4. Aside from Eva Luna, what would you say about the parts played by other female characters in this novel? Consider, for example, her mother Consuelo, her madrina or godmother, La Señora, and Zulema. What do you have to say about Mimí’s role in the novel, particularly with respect to gender?

5. If you happen to read Eva Luna as a commentary, of sorts, on life and politics in modern Latin America, what does Allende appear to be saying? To what extent does revolutionary activity, as she depicts it, appear likely to produce positive results? What do you make of her characterization of Colonel Tolomeo Rodriguez?

6. Throughout the novel we are reminded of Eva’s desire to be a writer. In fact, her mother’s most important gift to her appears to be her capacity to tell unusual stories, and Allende dedicates the book to her own mother “who gave me a love of stories.” Aside from the novel itself, which we are presumably expected to think of as Eva’s work, what evidence do you see of her commitment to writing? Both this novel and The Stories of Eva Luna are preceded with an epigraph from "A Thousand and One Tales of the Arabian Nights." What does this tell you about Eva Luna’s (or Isabel Allende’s) views about the importance of stories?