Set in the late 19th century and inspired by the Chilean civil war which ravaged the country in 1891, Isabel Allende’s historical drama tells of a young woman born illegitimately in San Francisco’s Mission District. Emilia del Valle’s surname comes from her Chilean father, an aristocrat who seduced her mother when she was a novice nun and left before their child was born. Emilia owes her fiercely independent spirit to her liberal-minded stepfather Francisco Claro, whom she calls Papo, who encourages his stepdaughter to think for herself.
In her late teens, Emilia writes a series of successful pulp fiction novels under the male pen name Brandon J Price. By the age of 23, she is a columnist at San Francisco’s Daily Examiner; still writing as a man, she longs to do more serious work. Eventually, she is commissioned to travel to Chile, where the father she has never met lives, to cover the war. She is accompanied by a seasoned war reporter, Eric Whelan, with whom she begins a relationship, though the pair part company as they each go in search of their own stories.
