BOOKS
A Long Petal of the Sea BY ISABEL ALLENDE
In this novel, set amid the Spanish Civil War, Isabel Allende gives us a short but incisive account of the horrors of war, as seen through the eyes of the Dalmau family from Barcelona, the Republican forces’ centre. It’s 1938, and the Republicans are losing the fight against the fascists and General Franco. By the time the family is forced to flee to France, only Victor, his mother Carme and Roser (Victor’s late brother Guillem’s fiancée) are still alive. But in the chaos of their flight, they lose Carme, and Victor and Roser are separated and sent to internment camps in France.
Eventually Victor and Roser marry in order to get passage on a refugee ship organised by
