First, read "Eva Luna." Then read this volume of short stories that range from the outrageously erotic to astoundingly delightful to downright melancholy. The stories, each of which is a little treasure in its own right, are so intense that I found I could only read one or two at a sitting to fully appreciate them. Author Isabel Allende was born to tell stories!

The premise of this book is based on the novel "Eva Luna," the fantastical story of a poverty-stricken girl living in an unnamed South American country. Eva Luna is orphaned at a young age and learns to rely on her wits, love of words and storytelling to survive. At the end of the book she is lying in bed with her lover, who asks her to tell him a story she has never told to anyone else. And so Eva Luna begins spinning her enchanting tales, 23 in all.

بناء متكامل بأسلوب شيق وأحاسيسه تلامس داخل القلوب تستحق خمسة نجوم

creo que deberia haber pensado que odio los cuentos antes de ponerme a leer un libro de cuentos,,,, fue uno de los libros más densos que leí en todo el año pero en fin, algunos cuentos sí me gustaron e isabel allende escribe muy bien

Stories of Eva Luna introduced me to Isabel Allende and for me there was no looking back. I love every short story but I do have my favourites...

I love ‘Two Words’ because it showed the Power of the written word, if only I had my two words, I would have a better bet at going through this World.

‘Clarissa’ is another favourite, her kindness and her hilarious conservation with the robber who had come to rob her. The fact that he brought her a gift every year for Christmas restores my faith in people.

‘Toad’s Mouth’ raunchy as hell, but what would we do without some raunch if not in real life at least in books.

What had me cheering was ‘The Gold of Tomás Vargas’ sometimes a little murder is required!

‘Our Secret’ was heartbreaking.

Sometimes the entire pueblo shares a delicious secret as in ‘The Schoolteacher’s Guest’

How do we get to the top of the social ladder? Get some tips from ‘The Proper Respect’

These are my favourites, but you may like the others.

Taking off from the book "Eva Luna", ......Eva's lover, Rolf Carle --( A photojournalist),
writes to Eva asking her to tell him stories.
In the prologue, Carle tells Eva, that he thinks in the frozen images of a photograph--but she- Eva- thinks in words. .....
So.... while Eva is lying in bed with her European lover, the refugee from Austria, tells him 23 stories.

Isabel Allende is a 'skilled storytelling'... she portrays a world in which the ordinary and the miraculous come together ---interweaving the real and the magical.
Many themes are examined---love, family, sexuality, exploitation of women, domestic violence, political oppression, economic inequality, sympathy, revenge, and compassion.

These are powerful fiction stories -seductive sensual....and like Allende...Eva Luna is a feminist.....( and 'storyteller').

In "Simple Maria"......a prostitute believes in love, yet pursues her profession as an expression for her insatiable passion.

In "The Gold of Tomas Vargas", .... both the wife and lover of an abusive man conspire to murder him. These two women live happily together --and made their way out of poverty living off the gold that he had once horded.

In "The School Teacher's Guest", .... and elderly school teacher uses a machete to kill a man who murdered her son.

In "Walimai".... revenge is the major theme --hey young women is held captive for sexual gratification working on a jungle rubber plantation.

In "And of Clay Are We Created", .....it's so sad: A young girl is trapped in a mudslide....and Eva's lover Carle is sent via helicopter to report her rescue but is unable to maintain his photo journalist objectivity..... and he stays with her until she dies. There's so much suffering, and memories of suffering in the story. Carle stays with the girl several days before she dies - and his repressed memories of youthful suffering surfaces. This is also being televised and Eva is experiencing both of their pain by watching the television news. What really got to me is this story is based on a true story from Isabel Allende's life when she witnessed the death of Omaira Sanchez, One of the thousands of victims of Colombia's Nevada Ruiz volcanic eruption in 1985.

Other stories we see through romantic delusions - economics sexual exploitation of women - secrets and bonding of women coming together who have been tortured in similar ways by the same oppressive political regime.
Psychological post traumatic scars are revealed when women gather together. Why is this ALWAYS so powerful and healing?/!!

Absurdities- confusion in the average mind -swindlers willing to take advantage of lonely hearts.....mixed with 'goodness' - love and friendship.....These stories are seriously emotionally felt. Allende - not even 5 feet in height herself - stands TALL in her passionate beliefs in convictions.... and boy, what a GRAND imagination she has. If this book doesn't remind us of the authors brilliance- I don't know what book would!!!

POWERFUL STORIES!!!!! The whole damn collection!!!!

This was a re-read and well worth it - magnificent.

Eva Luna, in bed with her lover, is asked to tell him a story 'you have never told anyone before', and thus starts a series of 23 stories told by this South American Scheherazade.

I find Allende to be a compassionate writer, often humorous, often magical, but always humane. The stories are peopled with an eclectic variety of characters – guerillas and tyrants, peasants, whores, doctors, teachers – who suffer, find and lose love, are disempowered and ignored, and who experience hardship and sorrow. Yet Allende never slips into sentimentality, and the sense of magic lifts many lives from the mundane to the mythological.

Houses and entire groups of people slip into the jungle, never to be seen again and remembered only in legend; tyrants find love, if not forgiveness; lives are wasted, neglected, ignored, and yet through all the stories weaves a belief in the power of the human heart to survive and the importance of love. Despite the chaos and the cruelty, the poverty and the bitterness of life, it is Rolf's desperate attempt to rescue 13 year old Azucena and his genuine assurances of how much he loves her, that soars above the base self-gratification of the politicians and remains in the mind.

Beautiful, poetic and recommended.

Cuentos de Eva Luna es una colección de cuentos que escribe un personaje protagonista de otra novela de Isabel Allende, Eva Luna (la cuál tendría que haber leido). Pese a mi falta de trasfondo he podido disfrutar mucho de algunos de los cuentos, como por ejemplo "La Mujer del Juez"y sobretodo "El palacio Imaginado", estos tienen personajes súper interesantes y sobretodo una esencia y ambientación muy atractiva. Pero como he dicho he disfrutado de algunos y no de gran parte, y es que pienso que bastantes de estos pasan completamente desapercibidos. Independientemente pienso que el libro es bastante recomendable y que es bastante difícil que no encuentres algún cuento que te guste.

• чилійська Шахерезада

• Ісабель Альєнде має слабкість до героїнь, свідомих своєї смерті

• неспокійні долі спокійних людей

• і манго. багато манго.

و حين بدأت السيدة( إ-أ )بمقدمتها الجذابة من شهرزاد بلغة الموسيقي أو ألف ليلة و ليلة بلغة الأساطير أيقنت أن أمامي أمسيةعظيمة
مجموعةمن الحكايات

مجموعة قصص شقية روحها خفيفة

1- قصة كلمتان صفقت لها بعدما أنهيت القراءة هل الكلمة أقوي من السلطة و الحروب
هل ( أنا أحبك) بهذه القوة التي تجعل أحدهم يغير القدر و يبيع أحلامه
:D
2- الطفلة الخبيثة عبثت بأمها و الجميع حتي تعود السيطرة للمرأة و إنتقمت من الرجل الأنثي تبًا للأنثي :D

3-فم الضفدع
الحب الحب الحب :D

شهريار الذي سحقته الأنثي و لماذا لا يُسق شهريار
هل لأن الأنثي جميلة أم لأن رو شهريار جميلة لا يهم
المهم هو أن القصص جميلة

وليس كمثل ايزابيل من يعيد لنا نهم القراءة..فلنستنجد بها !

Where’d I get this book? You get three guesses, but you should only need one. Yes, I found it on a “free-books-take-them-even-though-you-have-plenty-of-money-you-cheap-old-bum” table. But cut me some slack: it’s Isabel Allende. She’s blown my mind more than once. She’s both poetic and digestible, dreamy and relatable at the same time.

I’m not one for short stories, so I let this one linger on my TBR shelf for a while. But once I started, I was enthralled. Allende sets it up in a very creative way: a woman tells her lover nighttime stories, much as Scheherazade told the 1001 tales.



Think of it in terms of fables: there’s something to be learned, or at least experienced, in each. They all take place in some South American country, filled with small towns hidden in mountains and jungles. “Agua Santa,” some poor little Podunk somewhere, shows up a lot: characters with money or history or experience flit through regularly. The imagery is incredible.

Love is a theme throughout. It gets a little R-rated but done in a classy and romantic style. Every story has some tragic or meaningful plot. A few of them nearly left me in tears. There’s one chapter told from the perspective of a Native American tribe member. There’s a historical bent here, which seems to cover the late 19th and most of the 20th Century. Politics and economics are mixed in as well. It gets violent, but it’s fast-moving and dramatic at all points.

If Allende’s aim was to serve as storyteller, she succeeded. Really: try to imagine lying in bed, covers pulled up, and a loved one sitting on the edge. She’s recounting and describing people, setting a scene in some faraway land, telling you how interesting people encounter extraordinary events. My dad had a way of doing this, with a silly take on just about everything. Without his penchant for pterodactyls or talking lightbulbs, that’s what this felt like: grown-up, emotional, thought-provoking bedtime stories.

Allende brings Latin American culture to life unlike any author I’ve ever read. She’s an international treasure.