Allende’s fluidly written saga conveys her deep familiarity with the events she depicts, and her intent to illustrate their human impact in a moving way. The scope spans most of the lives of Victor Dalmau, a Republican army medic in 1936 Spain, and Roser Bruguera, a music student taken in by Victor’s family and, later, his brother Guillem’s lover and the mother of Guillem’s child. The story follows them over nearly sixty years, beginning with the tumult of the Spanish Civil War. Guillem is killed fighting against the Fascists, news that Victor can’t bear to tell Roser initially. After surviving separate and terrible circumstances that leave them refugees in France, where authorities treat them with contempt and worse, the two marry for practical reasons in order to join Pablo Neruda’s mission transporting over 2000 Spanish exiles to Chile aboard the S.S. Winnipeg . In Santiago, the Dalmaus find many Chileans sympathetic to the Spaniards, while others make them unwelcome. With a poetic ...
The Old Drift is a settlement along the Zambezi River where the novel begins in the early twentieth century. It concludes in 2023, covering British colonialism, the Kariba Dam’s construction, Zambian independence, the AIDS epidemic, and more.
“To err is human, that’s your doom and delight,” pronounces the unusual swarm of creatures narrating the story, which emphasizes the circumstantial and genetic chances affecting one’s life. While a genealogical chart reveals people’s connections, the plot remains surprising.
The tale of Sibilla, a hirsute Italian woman, has fairy-tale echoes. Matha, a teenage girl, trains as an astronaut, while other characters play major roles in medical research. From the Shiwa Ng’andu estate to the Kalingalinga compound, the deeply human, ethnically diverse characters fall in love, grieve, betray one another, and make shocking choices.
In this smartly composed epic, magical realism and science fiction interweave with authentic history, and the “colour bar,” the importance of female education, and the consequences of technological change figure strongly. It’s also a unique immigration story showing how people from elsewhere are enfolded into the country’s fabric.
While a bit too lengthy, Serpell’s novel is absorbing, occasionally strange, and entrenched in Zambian culture—in all, an unforgettable original.
I read The Old Dtift last December and wrote this (starred) review for Booklist's Feb 1 issue. The Old Drift was published in March. It's nearly 600 pages long, an unusual and detailed novel not like anything I've read before! Originally from Zambia, the author is an English professor at the University of California-Berkeley.
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