My name is Emilia del Valle

Her recent work can be found in bookstores in Spain, Latin America, and the United States simultaneously and in all formats.

A story of love and war, of discovery and redemption, starring a woman who, faced with the greatest challenges, survives and reinvents herself. Emilia del Valle is already a beloved character in Isabel Allende's universe, the Del Valle saga, which began with her masterpiece The House of the Spirits and continued with Daughter of Fortune and Portrait in Sepia.

The Story

Set in San Francisco in 1866, Molly Walsh is an Irish nun who becomes pregnant, though the unborn child's father, a Chilean aristocrat, doesn't want to hear about it. Even so, the child will bear her father's surname, Del Valle, an early example of Molly's lifelong commitment to ensuring her daughter receives her inheritance.

Emilia del Valle grows up with her mother and loving stepfather, Francisco Claro, a mestizo from Chihuahua who serves as the principal and teacher of a modest school. The girl grows up to be a brilliant young woman with a strong personality, so autonomous and independent that she defies all the social norms of her time. At twenty-three, she manages to become a columnist for the Daily Examiner, always hiding behind her false identity. There, she meets her classmate Eric Whelan, a renowned journalist and war reporter. Over time, she travels as a correspondent to the civil war. Chile. And alongside Whelan, she will cover a conflict between President Balmaceda and the rebel congress.

Her reports will place her at the center of the war, enduring terrible violence on the battlefield, in the emergency hospital, and in prison, where she will repeatedly struggle between life and death. At the same time, she will experience and suffer love, explore her ties with the Del Valle family, and finally meet her father, more to satisfy her mother's desire than out of her own curiosity," shares her publishing house Penguin Random House about the story.

The author also presents a Chile where there are forests, lakes, and volcanoes, a land where the horror of battle does not reach.

Who is Isabel Allende?

Since beginning her writing career in 1982 with the now-classic novel, The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende has become one of the most important figures in world literature. Her books include titles such as Eva Luna, Paula, The Island Beneath the Sea, Violeta, and The Wind Knows My Name, which have been translated into more than 42 languages, have sold over 80 million copies, and have received more than 60 international awards.

A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which also includes Don De Lillo, Tom Ford, and Joyce Carol Oates, she was awarded the Chilean National Prize for Literature in 2010. She has received 15 honorary doctorates and was inducted into the California Hall of Fame. In 2014, US President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor, and in 2018, the National Book Foundation awarded her the Medal for Outstanding Contribution to American Literature, one of the most prestigious literary awards in the United States. This was the first time a Spanish-language author was awarded the Medal and only the second time, after Saul Bellow in 1990, to a foreign author.

In addition to her writing career, she devotes much of her time to fighting for human rights. She founded the Isabel Allende Foundation.

In May of this year, the Instituto Cervantes in Madrid's Caja de las Letras received her legacy, which included a first edition of her book, Paula, photographs, and a manuscript of The House of the Spirits. She was also awarded an honorary doctorate by the Menéndez Pelayo International University. “I am living years of wonderful creativity, although I know I have less and less time left to live. I am the same activist as always, but with limitations. Writing is an art of alchemy, and I hope to be able to write until my last breath,” said the Chilean author.