Island Beneath the Sea

by Isabel Allende

Translated from the original Spanish by Margaret Sayers Peden

Born a slave on the island of Saint-Domingue - the daughter of an African mother she never knew and a white sailor who brought her into bondage - Zarité, known as Tété, survives a childhood of brutality and fear, finding solace in the traditional rhythms of African drums and in her exhilarating initiation into the mysteries of voodoo.

When twenty-year-old Toulouse Valmorain arrives on the island in 1770, he discovers that running his father's plantation is neither glamorous nor easy. Marriage also proves problematic when, eight years later, he brings home a bride. But it is his teenaged slave, Tété, upon whom Valmorain becomes most dependent, as their lives intertwine across four tumultuous decades.

In Island Beneath the Sea, internationally acclaimed author Isabel Allende spins the unforgettable saga of an extraordinary woman determined to find love amid loss and forge her own identity under the cruellest of circumstances.

Isabel Allende is the author of nine novels, translated into more than twenty-seven languages, including the New York Times bestsellers, Inés of My Soul, Portrait in Sepia, and Daughter of Fortune. In 2004 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Born in Peru and raised in Chile, she lives in California.

Translated into German, Arabic, Italian and Portugese. In the "Daniel Cosio Villegas Library" of El Colegio de Mexico, the book is very popular with our readers.