Beginning ~ with a chosen name

Beginning

She went by the name of Belisa Crepusculario, not because she had been baptized with that name or given it by her mother, but because she herself had searched until she found the poetry of "beauty" and "twilight" and cloaked herself in it.  She made her living selling words.

The Stories of Eva Luna ~ by Isabel Allende, 1989, translated by Margaret Sayers Peden, (1991), short stories, 331 pages

Told in the voice of Isabel Allende’s beloved character Eva Luna, a “distinctive, powerful, and haunting” (Los Angeles Times) collection of short fiction by one of the most iconic and acclaimed writers of our time.

Eva Luna is a young woman whose powers as a storyteller bring her friendship and love.  Lying in bed with her European lover, refugee and journalist Rolf Carlé, Eva answers his request for a story "you have never told anyone before" with these twenty-three samples of her vibrant artistry.  Interweaving the real and the magical, she explores love, vengeance, compassion, and the strengths of women, creating a world that is at once familiar and intriguingly new.

 

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays.