City of the Beasts

by Isabel Allende

  “You see, Dil Bahadur, how sometimes calm is effective,” was the lama’s only comment. The prince was unable to answer because his voice had frozen in his breast.

  Despite that unexpected visit, master and student decided to stay and spend the night in Chenthan Dzong, but they took the precaution of sleeping near a bonfire, and of keeping within reach a couple of lances they found among the weapons abandoned by the Tao-shu monks. The tiger did not return, but the next morning, when they continued their march, they saw its paw marks on the gleaming snow, and far away they heard its roars echoing among the peaks.

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  More by Isabel Allende

  KINGDOM OF THE GOLDEN DRAGON

  * * *

  Not many months have passed since Alexander Cold followed his bold grandmother into the heart of the Amazon to uncover its legendary Beast. This time reporter Kate Cold escorts her grandson and his closest friend, Nadia, along with the photographers from International Geographic, on a journey to another remote niche of the world—this time in the Himalayas. The team’s task is to locate its fabled Golden Dragon, a sacred statue and priceless oracle that can foretell the future of the kingdom.

  In their scramble to reach the statue before it is destroyed by the greed of an outsider, Alexander and Nadia must use the transcendent power of their totemic animal spirits: Jaguar and Eagle. With the aid of a sage Buddhist monk, his young royal disciple, and a fierce tribe of Yeti warriors, Alexander and Nadia fight to protect the holy rule of the Golden Dragon.

  “Imagining this utopian land and animating Buddhist beliefs is clearly fun for Allende, and her joy translates onto the page.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  FOREST OF THE PYGMIES

  * * *

  Alexander Cold knows all too well that his grandmother Kate is never far from an adventure. When International Geographic commissions her to write an article about the first elephant-led safaris in Africa, they head—with Nadia Santos and the magazine’s photography crew—to the blazing red plains of Kenya. Days into the tour a Catholic missionary approaches their camp in search of his companions, who have mysteriously disappeared. Kate, Alexander, Nadia, and their team, agreeing to aid in the rescue, enlist the help of a local pilot to lead them to the swampy forests of Ngoubé. There they discover a clan of Pygmies who unveil a harsh and surprising world of corruption, slavery, and poaching. Alexander and Nadia, utilizing the magical strengths of their totemic animal spirits, Jaguar and Eagle, launch a spectacular and precarious struggle to restore freedom and return leadership to its rightful hands.

  “Captures the romance of exotic travel. . . . Has at least two things Allende’s adult fiction is known for: passion and politics.”

  —Philadelphia Inquirer

  DAUGHTER OF FORTUNE

  * * *

  An orphan raised in Valparaíso, Chile, by a Victorian spinster and her rigid brother, young, vivacious Eliza Sommers follows her lover to California during the Gold Rush of 1849. Entering a rough-and-tumble world of new arrivals driven mad by gold fever, Eliza moves in a society of single men and prostitutes with the help of her good friend and savior, the Chinese doctor Tao Chi’en. California opens the door to a new life of freedom and independence for the young Chilean, and her search for her elusive lover gradually turns into another kind of journey. By the time she finally hears news of him, Eliza must decide who her true love really is.

  “An extravagant tale by a gifted storyteller whose spell brings to life the nineteenth-century world. . . . Entertaining and well paced . . . compelling.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “A rich cast of characters . . . a pleasurable story. . . . In Daughter of Fortune, Allende has continued her obsession with passion and violence.”

  —New York Times Book Review

  PORTRAIT IN SEPIA

  * * *

  As a young girl Aurora del Valle suffered a brutal trauma that shaped her character and erased from her mind all recollection of the first five years of her life. Raised by her ambitious grandmother, the regal and commanding Paulina del Valle, she grows up in a privileged environment. Aurora is free of the limitations that circumscribed the lives of women at that time, but is tormented by terrible nightmares. When she finds herself alone at the end of an unhappy love affair, she decides to explore the mystery of her past and to discover exactly what it was all those years ago that had such a devastating effect on her young life. Richly detailed and epic in scope, this engrossing story of the dark power of hidden secrets is intimate in its probing of human character and thrilling in the way it illuminates the complexity of family ties.

  “Rich with color and emotion and packed with intriguing characters.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  ZORRO

  * * *

  Born in southern California late in the eighteenth century, Diego de la Vega is a child of two worlds. His father is an aristocratic Spanish military man turned landowner; his mother a Shoshone warrior. Diego learns from his maternal grandmother, White Owl, the ways of her tribe, while receiving from his father lessons in the art of fencing and in cattle branding. It is here, during a childhood filled with mischief and adventure, that Diego witnesses the brutal injustices dealt Native Americans by European settlers and first feels the inner conflict of his heritage.

  At the age of sixteen, Diego is sent to Barcelona for a European education. In a country chafing under the corruption of Napoleonic rule, Diego follows the example of his celebrated fencing master and joins La Justicia, a secret underground resistance movement devoted to helping the powerless and the poor. With this tumultuous period as a backdrop, Diego falls in love, saves the persecuted, and confronts for the first time a great rival who emerges from the world of privilege.

  Between California and Barcelona, the New World and the Old, the persona of Zorro is formed, a great hero is born, and the legend begins. After many adventures—duels at dawn, fierce battles with pirates at sea, and impossible rescues—Diego de la Vega, a.k.a. Zorro, returns to America to reclaim the hacienda on which he was raised and to seek justice for all who cannot fight for it themselves.

  “Allende’s discreetly subversive talent really shows. . . . You turn the pages, cheering on the masked man.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  INES OF MY SOUL

  * * *

  This magisterial work of historical fiction recounts the astonishing life of Inés Suarez, a daring Spanish conquistadora who toiled to build the nation of Chile—and whose vital role has too often been neglected by history.

  It is the beginning of the Spanish conquest of the Americas, and when Inés’s shiftless husband disappears to the New World, she uses the opportunity to search for him as an excuse to flee her stifling homeland and seek adventure. After a treacherous journey to Peru, she learns of his death in battle. She meets and begins a passionate love affair with a man who seeks only honor and glory: Pedro Valdivia, war hero and field marshal to the famed Francisco Pizarro. Together, Inés and Valdivia will build the new city of Santiago and wage a ruthless war against the indigenous Chileans. The horrific struggle will change them forever, pulling them toward separate destinies.

  Inés of My Soul is a work of breathtaking scope, written with the narrative brilliance and passion readers have come to expect from Isabel Allende.

  “Riveting . . . it simply captivates. . . . A colorful and clear-eyed portrait of a woman and a country.”

  —Chicago Sun-Times

  APHRODITE: A MEMOIR OF THE SENSES

  * * *

  Under the aegis of the Goddess of Love, Isabel Allende uses her storytelling skills brilliantly in Aphrodite to evoke the delights of food and sex. After considerable research and study she has become an authority on aphrodisiacs, which include everything from food and drink to stories and, of course, love. Readers will find here recipes from Allende’s mother, poems, stories from ancient and foreign literature, paintings, personal anecdot
es, fascinating tidbits on the sensual art of food and its effect on amorous performance, tips on how to attract your mate and revive flagging virility, passages on the effect of smell on libido, a history of alcoholic beverages, and much more.

  “Allende turns the joyous preparation and consumption of fine food into an erotic catalyst.”

  —New York Times Book Review

  MY INVENTED COUNTRY: A MEMOIR

  * * *

  Isabel Allende evokes the magnificent landscapes of her country, a charming, idiosyncratic Chilean people with a violent history and an indomitable spirit, and the politics, religion, myth, and magic of a homeland that she carries with her even today. The book circles around two life-changing moments. The assassination of her uncle Salvador Allende Gossens on september 11, 1973, sent her into exile and transformed her into a literary writer. And the terrorist attacks against her adopted homeland the United States on September 11, 2001, brought forth an overdue acknowledgment that Allende had indeed left home. My Invented Country, mimicking the workings of memory itself, ranges back and forth across that distance between past and present lives. It speaks compellingly to immigrants and to all of us who try to retain a coherent inner life in a world full of contradictions.

  “The book gets my undivided attention when it expounds on the relationship of the author to that country of hers, invented, imaginary, fictional, to the story of her family, which is itself invented memory, and to her vocation as a narrator.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  PAULA: A MEMOIR

  * * *

  With an enchanting blend of magic realism, politics, and romance reminiscent of her classic bestseller The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende presents a soul-baring memoir that seizes the reader like a novel of suspense.

  Written for her daughter, Paula, when she became ill and slipped into a coma, Paula is the colorful story of Allende’s life—from her early years in her native Chile, through the turbulent military coup of 1973, to the subsequent dictatorship and her family’s years of exile. In the telling, bizarre ancestors reveal themselves, delightful and bitter childhood memories surface, enthralling anecdotes of youthful years are narrated, and intimate secrets are softly whispered.

  In an exorcism of death and a celebration of life, Isabel Allende explores the past and questions the gods. She creates a magical book that carries the reader from tears to laughter, and from terror through sensuality to wisdom. In Paula, readers will come to understand that the miraculous world of her novels is the world Isabel Allende inhabits— it is her enchanted reality.

  “Spellbinding. . . . In flawlessly rich prose, [Allende] shares with us her most intimate feelings.”

  —Washington Post Book World

  THE SUM OF OUR DAYS

  * * *

  In The Sum of Our Days, internationally acclaimed author Isabel Allende reconstructs the painful reality of her own life in the wake of the tragic death of her daughter, Paula. Narrated with warmth, humor, exceptional candor, and wisdom, this remarkable memoir is as exuberant and full of life as its creator. Allende bares her soul as she shares her thoughts on love, marriage, motherhood, spirituality and religion, infidelity, addiction, and memory—and recounts stories of the wildly eccentric, strong-minded, and eclectic tribe she gathers around her and lovingly embraces as a family.

  “Terrific. . . . Funny, insightful, moving, and filled with Allende’s unique voice.”

  —USA Today

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favourite HarperCollins authors.

  Also by Isabel Allende

  The House of the Spirits

  Of Love and Shadows

  Eva Luna

  The Stories of Eva Luna

  The Infinite Plan

  Paula

  Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses

  Daughter of Fortune

  Portrait in Sepia

  My Invented Country

  Zorro

  Inés of My Soul

  The Sum of Our Days

  FOR YOUNG ADULTS

  Kingdom of the Golden Dragon

  Forest of the Pygmies

  Copyright

  A hardcover edition of this book was published in 2002 by HarperCollins Publishers.

  P.S.™ is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.

  CITY OF THE BEASTS. Copyright © 2002 by Isabel Allende. English translation copyright © 2002 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  First Harper Trophy edition published 2004.

  First Harper Perennial edition published 2009.

  The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows:

  Allende, Isabel.

  City of the beasts / by Isabel Allende ; translated from the Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 0-06-050918-X

  1. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 2. Supernatural—Fiction. 3. Amazon River Valley—Fiction. 4. Indians of South America—Amazon River Valley—Fiction. 5. Grandmothers—Fiction. I. Peden, Margaret Sayers. II. Title.

  PZ7.A43912 Ci 2002

  2002022338

  [Fic]—dc21

  CIP

  AC

  ISBN 978-0-06-182511-8 (Harper Perennial edition)

  EPub Edition March 2014 ISBN 9780062254474

  09 10 11 12 13 RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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