Book Review: The Wind Knows My Name

“He aquí mi secreto, que no puede ser más simple: sólo se puede ver bien con el corazón; lo esencial es invisible para los ojos.” (“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”) – El Principito (The Little Prince) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“Hay una estrella donde toda la gente y los animales están contentos y es mejor que el cielo, porque no hay que morirse para ir allí.” (“There is a star where all the people and animals are happy, and it is better than heaven because you don’t have to die to go there.”) – Anita Díaz

With these two beautiful quotes, the novel, The Wind Knows My Name, by Isabel Allende, begins the story of two different lives, one from the late 1930s and the other from 2019. Both stories are separated by decades but share the same painful experience of a forced immigration destined to meet and embrace each other.

Isabel Allende is my favorite author in the Spanish language. Her book El Viento Conoce Mi Nombre (The Wind Knows My Name) was an excellent novel, like everything that she writes. I read the book in Spanish, so you’ll notice some translations in this short review.

The story begins in 1938, at the start of Hitler’s invasion of Austria, with a little boy named Samuel Adler who gets caught in the middle of the Nazi abuse against the Jewish people in that country. His father was injured during some riots and was taken to a hospital and later to a Nazi concentration camp, never to return. His mother, following the advice of close friends, decided to send Samuel to England on the Kindertransport to protect his life. Samuel’s mother stayed in Austria, hoping to find her husband and rejoin Samuel in England.

Of note, the Kindertransport (German for “children’s transport”) was an organized rescue effort of children from Nazi-controlled territory that took place in 1938–1939 during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. The United Kingdom took in nearly 10,000 children, most of them Jewish, from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Free City of Danzig. The children were placed in British foster homes, hostels, schools, and farms. Often, they were the only members of their families who survived the Holocaust that was to come. In the United States, the Wagner–Rogers Bill was introduced in Congress, which would have increased the quota of immigrants by bringing to the U.S. a total of 20,000 refugee children, but it did not pass.1

Samuel spent his formative years in England and moved to the United States to pursue his love for music.

Fast forward to 2019, and we encounter the second story. Anita Díaz, a seven-year-old girl, who was separated from her mother at the U.S.-Mexican border. Anita’s mother was escaping gender-based violence in El Salvador, where she was shot by a man infatuated with her and extremely upset when he didn’t get the attention he wanted.

Anita was blind and didn’t speak English, but she found some wonderful people, among them Selena Durán, a social worker, and Frank Angileri, a lawyer, who helped her find a safe place while working through the legal system to keep her in the United States.

Isabel Allende connected the stories of both Samuel and Anita beautifully, narrating the painful realities and the evil that forces families to take drastic measures to protect their children.

Their stories are heart-wrenching and moving, but the end is a happy one, under the circumstances.

Here are some powerful highlights from the novel:

– In 1995, while Samuel Adler was visiting a Holocaust museum in Washington, he read a list of victims of genocide and recognized his mother’s name, Rachel Sara Adler, and others in his family. At that moment, he realized that his mother sending him on the Kindertransport was the only option to save him from the atrocities of the Nazi regime.

“Imaginó que el sufrimiento de ella fue mucho peor que el suyo propio y que Rachel murió con el nombre de su único hijo en los labios.” (“He imagined that her suffering was much worse than his own and that Rachel died with the name of her only son on her lips.”) (p. 293)

– Love as a powerful motivator, when Samuel (in his late 80s) said the following after Anita came into his life,

“No puedo ser optimista en este mundo de porquería, pero ahora siento las ganas de cambiarlo que no tuve antes.” (“I can’t be optimistic in this crappy world, but now I feel the desire to change it that I didn’t have before.”) (p. 302)

– Towards the end, Samuel commented on an imaginary place created by Anita to escape from her brutal reality and separation from her mother called Azabahar. One day, Anita invited Samuel to Azabahar (The star of the spirits), where they met with Anita’s sister Claudia, her mother Marisol, and Samuel’s wife Nadine. Anita gave him permission to discuss Azabahar with Frank, Selena, and Leticia (who was taking care of Samuel and Anita). In a conversation with Frank, Samuel told him,

“Yo creía que Azabahar era el refugio de Anita, el lugar adonde iba cuando necesitaba escapar de este mundo, pero ahora sé que es más que eso. Es el reino misterioso de la imaginación y sólo se puede ver bien con el corazón.” (“I used to think that Azabahar was Anita’s refuge, the place she went when she needed to escape this world, but now I know it is more than that. It is the mysterious realm of imagination and can only be truly seen with the heart.”) (p. 345-346)

The novel was fantastic and definitely touched my heart deeply on a few occasions. I highly recommend it, and like I said, I’m a big fan of Isabel Allende, so what is not to like?

About the author2

Isabel Allende is one of the most widely read authors in the world, having sold more than seventy-seven million books. Born in Peru and raised in Chile, Isabel won worldwide acclaim in 1982 with the publication of her first novel, The House of the Spirits. Since then, she has authored more than twenty-six bestselling and critically acclaimed books, including Daughter of Fortune, Island Beneath the Sea, Paula, and The Wind Knows My Name.

In 1996, following the death of her daughter, Paula, Allende established a charitable foundation in her honor. The foundation has awarded grants to more than one hundred nonprofits worldwide, delivering life-changing care to hundreds of thousands of women and girls.

In 2014, President Barack Obama awarded Allende the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, and in 2018 she received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation. Allende lives in California.

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindertransport ↩︎
  2. https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B000APY7B8/about ↩︎

43 thoughts on “Book Review: The Wind Knows My Name”

  1. Thanks for this insight. These great writers seem to have more and more to offer. Am reading Anita Desai’s Rosarito set in Mexico and with connections to India. I loved reading the Spanish and your translation. Am afraid my Spanish is still not good enough to read a novel fluently. I must persevere and try this one of Allende’s.

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    1. I don’t read a lot of fiction, but I love Isabel Allende, so I’m trying to read all of her books. I’m also trying to read more fiction this year to add variety to my reading list. I’m going to check out Anita’s book. Thank you.

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    1. I haven’t read that one yet, but I am working my way through all of her books. What I like about The Wind Knows My Name is how the two periods connect in a way that benefits the two main characters.

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  7. Thank you, Edward, for this recommendation! Unfortunately, I have a dozen books on my ‘still to read’ shelf, however, i will add her name to my ever growing list of recommendations! 🙇‍♂️

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  8. This sounds like quite the interesting read. I think the concept is very fascinating, how it tells two similar stories taking place in different eras. What a truly good look at what people face and have always faced. Thanks for sharing your review!

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  13. Hola, Edward. Me siento identificada con la frase que habla del optimismo tardío. Sabes… De algún modo me recordó un poco a una serie llamada «Dos vidas» con la que di por un pelín, pues no veo nada casi. Es de HBO. Si puedes, está bien. Me gusta como tratan las distintas épocas y similitudes de dos personas. La esclavitud, el racismo y más. Un abrazo.

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