New Master Storyteller Commences Her Reign
By Elaine Kendall

The result is arresting and altogether distinctive, powerful and haunting; a collection of stories to be read aloud; memorized and repeated for generations.

As in traditional legend, the characters are larger than life embodiments of passion, cruelty and virtue. Look elsewhere for failing relationships, uncommitted lovers, jaded sophisticates and adolescents in search of themselves. Allende's people know exactly who they are and what they must do to survive.

There is violence in these stories - revenge, madness, death, lust and greed - but also compassion, vitality, humor, tenderness and generosity, and all in exquisite balance and proportion.

Superbly translated from the Spanish, the language creates an aura of mystery and wonder even in the tales clearly based on actual events and firmly rooted in the present.

THE CALGARY HERALD - January 19, 1991

Allende tells magical tales
By Gillian Steward

This is a book of stories that some how turns the ordinary into magic and the magical into everyday life.

The stories are like opulent parables that tell us about the marvels of life. The characters dig deep into the subconscious and I, for one, sense I will be going back to this book again and again just to be with them.

WASHINGTON POST - January 20, 1991

The Risks of Passion
By Leigh Allison Wilson

Allende is a real talent, an amazingly prolific one. In her stories there are palpable life and death risks, the risks of passionate love, the risks of passionate belief, of convictions and honor.

SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER - January 29, 1991

Anecdotal "Stories of Eva Luna" Maupasant tradition alive in Allende's tales

NEW YORK TIMES - January 1991

Fish Fall From the Sky for a Reason
By Barbara Kingsolver

Eva Luna's stories are delicate, their images akin to poetry: the Pope in his glass-closed car, for example, is “a white porpoise in an aquarium”; Tierra del Fuego tapers off into “a rosary of islands” And, like poetry, this prose requires careful attention.

REVIEW: LATIN AMERICAN LITERATURE AND ARTS - January - June 1991

The Stories of Eva Luna
By Alexander Coleman

Though “Eva Luna” may prefigure the stories, the novel is certainly not a requisite to their enjoyment. They stand alone in their own world, with their own integrity and consistency: No other support is needed. Eva is the archetypal and peripatetic storyteller.

Allende reaches readers across many language barriers.

These stories are entertainments, of course, and are meant to be read as such, but they also partake of the literary and psychic disjunction of a whole generation of Chilean and Latin American exiles.

AMERICAS - Volume 42, Number 5, 1990
(The Stories of Eva Luna)
By Barbara Mujica

Cuentos de Eva Luna (The Stories of Eva Luna) shows us Isabel Allende at her best. The twenty-three tales that compose the collection present a plethora of fascinating, robust characters, some of which appeared in Allende's 1987 novel Eva Luna.

THE EDMONTON JOURNAL - February 10, 1991

Short stories a luscious fare
By Lynne Van Luven

Some short-story collections contain such luscious fare readers devour them at one sitting, eager to hasten the moment when they can savor each tale again in the rereading.

THE TORONTO STAR - February 16, 1991

Extraordinary tales of sexual witchcraft
By Sarah Sheard

The frank passion of Allende's writing is somewhat reminiscent of Anais Nin's erotica but the lush Central American landscape, the fabulous scale of narrative, the characters as darkly pungent as coffee tinged with blood, charge her stories with a physicality and power that will leave readers checking for bruises on their thighs.

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES - February 1991

“Instantly seductive, richly sensual and unabashedly romantic”

LOS ANGELES TIMES - February 1991

“Enthralling .... powerful and haunting.”

ORLANDO SENTINEL - February 1991

“Full of grace and passion .... love and revenge ... enchanting ...One could go on reading her stories forever.”

HOUSTON CHRONICLE - February 1991

“Tales of sexual heat, murder, obsession, greed and revenge.”

SAN DIEGO UNION - February 1991

“Isabel Allende always revives one's faith in the intoxicating power of sheer old-fashioned storytelling.”

HARPERS BAZAAR - February 1991

“A fiercely erotic tour of the magical.”

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE - February 1991

“An extraordinary fictional potion.... That all the tales are love stories is [a] bonus.”

DETROIT FREE PRESS - March 3, 1991

Vivid folklike tales capture the culture of South America
By Barbara Holliday

Pungency and passion mark most of these 23 tales. Allende is a skilled storyteller who works like a miniaturist. She captures whole lives with the briefest of lines. In her world, the scales of destiny achieve a rough balance. Despite the brevity of these encounters, Allende makes each one matter.

THE NATION - March 11, 1991

The Stories of Eva Luna
By Patricia Hart

Allende can spin a funny, sensual yarn, but she can also use her narrative kills to remind us that parallel to our placid and comfortable existence is another, invisible universe, one where poverty, misery and torture are all too real.

THE BOSTON SUNDAY GLOVE - April 14, 1991

The magical stories of Isabel Allende
By William A. Davis

Most of the collection's tales have the quality of legend or folk myth.

SOUTHERN OREGON CURRENTS - July 19, 1991

The Scheherazade of Latin America
By Vince Aleccia

Allende's latest work gives us a full flavored taste of life in Latin America, but her themes touch on the universal human experience. It's a treat not to be missed.