In December 1991 Allendes daughter Paula aged 26 fell gravely ill & sank into a coma. This book started as a letter to Paula written during the hours spent at her bedside & became a personal memoir & a testament to the ties that bind families
- a brave enlightening inspiring true story. This book was written during the interminable hours the novelist Isabel Allende spent in the corridors of a Madrid hospital in her hotel room & beside her daughter Paulas bed during the summer & autumn of 1992. Faced with the loss of her child Isabel Allende turned to storytelling to sustain her own spirit & to convey to her daughter the will to wake up to survive. The story she tells is that of her own life her family history & the tragedy of her nation Chile in the years leading up to Pinochets brutal military coup.