Chilean author Isabel Allende, a bestselling novelist for the last 40 years or so, is known for her lyrical, almost romantic style, even as her books discuss big, weighty political themes. Mass upheaval and political violence are frequently round the corner in Allende’s books, but so is the uplifting power of hope. Her latest novel, The Wind Knows My Name (Bloomsbury India), is really two stories in one—and the first of these involves the Holocaust, no less. Five-year-old Samuel Adler’s family loses everything during Kristallnacht (or ‘the night of the broken glass,’ a pogrom against Jews carried out by the Nazis on November 9-10, 1938). Risking everything, Samuel’s mother puts him on a train to England with nothing but the clothes on his back and his treasured violin.
Over 80 years later, the now-octogenarian Samuel’s paths cross with seven-year-old Anita Diaz, almost blind and fleeing political violence in El Salvador. As Anita’s American protectors—activist Selena Durán and lawyer Frank Angileri—introduce her to Samuel, he realizes that the little girl has been blessed with a vivid imagination and unshakeable belief. Pushed into a corner by the Donald Trump administration’s cruel parent-child separation policy for undocumented immigrants, Anita uses a dream world she calls ‘Azabahar’ to escape these harsh realities.
There are two things that this novel does really well. Firstly, by connecting authoritarian governments of the past and the present, Allende shows us how humanity refuses to learn some lessons. These historical ‘resonances’ cover a whole spectrum — they can be established by something a character said, shared elements of Samuel and Anita’s journeys, even certain physical location. Secondly, Allende is not interested in some facile ‘humanization’ of the fascists. Conversely, she is very interested in how given the right moment and the right ideological push, even ‘decent’ or ‘progressive’ men can descend pretty quickly into becoming a bloodthirsty mob. Here, for example, is a passage from the novel’s first section, wherein Samuel’s father Rudolph (‘Rudy’ to his friends) has gone missing and Rudolph’s friend Peter Steiner, an ‘Aryan-born’ pharmacist, realizes that the antisemitic violence exploding all around him has unlocked something vile inside him.
“The pharmacist quickly realized, to his horror, that the crowd’s raw, savage energy was contagious and even exhilarating. He had to reject the impulse to transform into a monster, to destroy, burn and shout till he had no air left in his lungs. Panting, covered in sweat, his mouth dry and his skin tingling with the rush of adrenaline, he crouched down behind a tree and tried to catch his breath and compose himself. “Rudy…Rudy…” he murmured. He continued repeating the name aloud till he had no air left in his lungs.”
Allende is every bit as brutal about the Trump administration and its cruel policies targeting undocumented immigrants, especially women and children. Anita is adrift and helpless in America in the first place because of the Trump White House’s parent-child separation policy.
“Selena told Frank that in one of her brief telephone conversations with Marisol, she learned that the mother and daughter had been forced to spend three days in a so-called icebox. Women and children, even some babies under two days old, were kept there, shivering in the glacial cold, huddled together on the concrete floor, with only a Mylar blanket for warmth. (…) The conditions were very bad: barely any food, lack of basic sanitary conditions, lights left on all night, verbal abuse, Anita had said she was thirsty and a guard told her that if she wanted water she should go back to her own country.”
Which isn’t to say that Allende cannot be funny when the mood takes her. The early signs of attraction between Selena and Frank are treated with great affection and not a little humour — she has too much pride, he has too much prejudice, and you know the rest. Samuel’s fascist grandson (this is especially disappointing to him as a Holocaust survivor) circa 2019 is an adviser at the White House, and Allende makes it quite clear just who is it she is alluding to with a brutally funny passage.
“She’d never been overly fond of the grandson, Martin Wendell, either, but she supposed he must have been fairly clever to have landed the job as top presidential advisor at such a young age. To his grandfather, it was an utter disgrace. Leticia had known Martin since he was a boy and had seen him for the last time at Nadine’s funeral, when he would’ve been around twenty-eight. He was already balding, like Mussolini. He hadn’t been to visit his grandfather in five years.”
Martin’s youth, the Mussolini comparison and his premature balding are a giveaway—Allende is talking about former presidential adviser Stephen Miller, one of the architects of Trump’s immigration policy. This is just one of many moments in the novel where Allende demonstrates her understanding of the rhythms of history. The Wind Knows My Name is another triumph by a novelist who continues to sell truckloads of books worldwide without compromising on style or literary merit.
The Wind Knows My Name by Isabel Allende is published by Bloomsbury India; Rs 599.
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