Isabel Allende’s new book explores lives of two children adrift alone

Allende knows firsthand about the loss of homeland after leaving Chile for exile two years after Salvador Allende, her father’s first cousin, was overthrown as the country’s president in a 1973 coup. Photo: AP

Prolific Latin American-born author Isabel Allende skillfully braids the traumatic stories of two young children separated from each other by decades and thousands of miles in her latest novel, The Wind Knows My Name.

It’s a kind of homage to parents who make unthinkable decisions to save their little ones, and to kids who survive some of the toughest challenges imaginable.