At the beginning of the novel, Zarité’s master, Valmorain marries a young beauty through the designs of the girl’s brother, Sancho, whose profligate ways require underwriting by the wealthy Valmorain. In the understated irony of the omniscient voice, Allende has created a brilliant balance to Zarité’s personal storytelling. Zarité’s portions are punctuated with the refrain, “This is how I remember it,” a counterpoint to the other voice, as if to say this is my life, my feelings which you cannot possess or obliterate, a declaration of independence woven into the novel. The novel shifts between chapters told by Zarité herself in first person and an omniscient voice, which manages to express an ironic distain for the deficiencies and cruelties of many of the characters while at the same time plunging us into the consciousness of a wide tapestry of characters. Allende’s richly drawn world envelops the reader, but even more compelling are the narrative voices telling this complex, interwoven story. It follows the life of Zarité, a nine year old slave girl sold to Toulouse Valmorain, a French plantation owner in Saint Domingue (later Haiti). Isabel Allende’s latest novel, Island Beneath the Sea (April 2010), brings us into the 18 th century world of slavery and revolution in Saint Domingue, Cuba and New Orleans.
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