Violeta

by Isabel Allende

Violeta tells the story of the author Violeta Del Valle. Violeta was born in 1920 amid the Spanish flu epidemic in an unnamed South American country. She was the youngest daughter of her family and had five older brothers. The book depicts the scene during the 2020 pandemic, where Violeta is breathing her last as a ripe old woman of 100 years. She writes a letter to her grown up grandson telling him about her multiple difficulties. Violeta has a long passionate but troubled relationship with her former husband and the father of her son. Her son is a journalist who has come into the government's Black books because of his career. Thus to escape he first seeks asylum in Argentina and then in Norway. After this tumultuous period in her life, Violeta finally find a partner and solace in a retired diplomat who is also a naturalist. The book deals with a vivid 100-year-story that contains surviving a pandemic, the great depression, loss of familial wealth, political upheavals, marriage problems, estrangement and eventual peace.