Of Love and Shadows

Isabel Allende · b. 1942 · Chile

Originally De amor y de sombra (Spanish) · translated by Margaret Sayers Peden

Why it matters

A journalist and a photographer investigate a young woman's disappearance and uncover a massacre a dictatorship buried in a mine shaft. Allende's angriest early book: love story and testimonio fused into one act of documentation.

At a glance

Accessible, linear storytelling carries a grim political subject without structural difficulty.