“The exodus from Barcelona was a Dantesque spectacle of thousands of people shivering with cold in a stampede that soon slowed to a straggling procession travelling at the speed of the amputees, the wounded, the old folks, and the children.” But of course, Allende helped me imagine this: I was unfamiliar with the terrible suffering of the Spanish refugees who fled Francoist Spain during or in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Many ways to love, and many lives to live. Shows us that within just one couple’s story, there are many ways to suffer,

The book’s narrative never stops giving and the relentless, action-packed, well-crafted spirit of Allende’s writing carries through right to the closing words. The final part explores the aftermath of these political events for the couple, their family, and the connections they have made.

In the second part, exile is transformed into belonging, against a tense political backdrop in the run-up to the election of socialist president Salvador Allende (related to Isabel) and the military coup that brought about the start of Pinochet’s dictatorship. The Dalmaus face civil war, a concentration camp, a disappeared family member and an extremely straining journey while Roser is pregnant, all in only the very first part of the book. Roser and Victor Dalmau reach Chile in 1939 by travelling on the real-life ship SS Winnipeg, a ship funded by the Chilean poet-diplomat Pablo Neruda. A book with a cover almost as beautiful as its content, A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende follows two Catalonian-Spanish refugees who settle in Chile, and the extraordinary lives they build there.

A long petal of the sea synopsis