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Isabel Allende will visit the UK in February 2020 for the first time in 12 years.
She will discuss A Long Petal of the Sea, recently signed with Bloomsbury following a six-publisher auction, marking a move from previous publisher Simon & Schuster.
The novel will be published on 21st January and Isabel will be in the UK from 9th to 13th February 2020. Bloomsbury has confirmed the following events: Southbank Centre’s The Royal Festival Hall (9th February) in London, Manchester Literature Festival (11th February) and UEA Literary Festival in Norwich, in conjunction with the Arthur Miller Institute (12th February).
“Based on history and real people, A Long Petal of the Sea is a masterful work of historical fiction about hope, exile and belonging,” Bloomsbury said. “Victor Dalmau is a young doctor when he is caught up in the Spanish Civil War, a tragedy that leaves his life - and the fate of his country - forever changed. Together with his sister-in-law, the pianist Roser Bruguera, he is forced out of his beloved Barcelona and into exile. When opportunity to seek refuge in Chile arises, they take it, boarding a ship chartered by the poet Pablo Neruda to the promised 'long petal of sea and wine and snow' over the seas. There, they find themselves enmeshed in a rich web of characters who come together in love and tragedy over the course of four generations, destined to witness the battle between freedom and repression as it plays out across the world.”
Allende said: “I am thrilled to be visiting my beloved readers in the UK. It has been way too long. I am counting the days.”
A Chilean immigrant herself, Allende campaigns for human rights causes and in 1996 founded the Isabel Allende Foundation. Created to honour the author’s daughter, Paula Frias, who died at age 29, the Foundation has awarded grants to more than 100 non-profits worldwide delivering life-changing care to hundreds of thousands of women and girls.
Tickets for Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall will be on sale in late September on this website. Tickets for Manchester and UEA will be released later this autumn.