A giant of literature returns with My Name is Emilia Del Valle, the latest historical fiction by Isabel Allende. Her latest heroine is – yet again – a bright female immigrant trapped between two worlds.
Born in the 1880s to an Irish mother and Chilean aristocrat, Emilia Del Valle is abandoned by her father. She rubs against the patriarchy of the time, pursuing a career in writing and journalism. She publishes under a man’s name and her career takes her to Chile to cover the brewing civil war and possibly reunite with her estranged father.
Like much of her other work, Emilia Del Valle serves as a thin veneer for Allende’s background. Her own life as a single mother was upended in 1973 when a military coup invaded her home in Chile. She fled to Venezuela, writing her lauded The House of Spirits, which remains one of her most renowned works.
Allende deserves her status as the most-read author on the planet in the Spanish language. She is a master at conjuring a sense of place. My Name is Emilia Del Valle is most successful in its ability to render the US and Chile in the late 19th century. Frances Riddle’s translation serves the prose well, although some idioms haven been translated very literally.Â
It’s impossible to deny, however, that so many of the themes and ideas presented in the novel are already present – and explored with more depth and nuance – in Allende’s prolific back catalogue.
Read: Book review: Highways and Byways, Jimmy Barnes
Nonetheless, My Name is Emilia Del Valle is an enjoyable historical fiction novel best enjoyed by those new to Allende’s work and this section of history.
My Name is Emilia Del Valle, Isabel Allende
Publisher: Bloomsbury
ISBN: 9781526687654
Pages: 304pp
Format: Paperback
RRP: $32.99
Publication date: 29 April 2025
