Eva Luna

The setting of Eva Luna is an unnamed South American country. Though Allende deliberately refrains from identifying the country, events throughout the narrative closely mirror political changes in both Chile and Venezuela during the period in which it takes place. Eva Luna is roughly set between the end of WWII in 1945 and the 1980s. During this time, Chile and Venezuela each underwent sociopolitical upheaval.

Allende was born in Peru but raised in Chile. Her father’s cousin, Salvador Allende, was the first Marxist President of Chile from 1970 to 1973. In 1973, General Augusto Pinochet staged a coup and overthrew Salvador Allende, establishing an authoritarian dictatorship. Salvador Allende died during the coup; although his death was officially ruled a suicide, many believe that he was assassinated. Violent power struggles and suppressive dictatorships are a recurring motif in Eva Luna, likely inspired by Allende’s firsthand experience. After Salvador Allende’s death, Isabel Allende helped to smuggle dissenters out of Chile. When she herself became a target, she fled to Venezuela, where she spent the next 13 years. Allende has stated that Eva Luna was inspired by her exile in Venezuela and the people she met there.

Between the 1940s and the 1980s, Venezuela had its own political troubles. The country’s leadership changed hands several times and multiple coups were carried out. Certain events in Eva Luna directly parallel Venezuelan history. “El Benefactor,” the dictator who rules during Consuelo’s childhood, is likely inspired by Juan Vicente Gomez “El Benemérito,” a military general who ruled Venezuela from 1908 until his death in 1935. Known to Venezuelans as a cruel and brutal dictator, Gomez was praised by Congress for his advancement of the country’s interests through the oil trade. The discovery of petroleum in Venezuela revolutionized the economy, a change captured in Eva Luna. In Chapter 3, Eva listens to the radio praising their country for “the wisdom of its leaders [and] the swamp of petroleum on which it floated” (81).

After Gomez’s death, Venezuela was ruled by two former war ministers, Contera and Angarita. Angarita was unseated in a 1945 coup, followed by the first democratic election in Venezuela. The Democratic Action party was elected and held office for three years before being removed in a coup d’état.

After this interlude, known as El Trieno Adeco, another dictatorship ruled Venezuela for a decade until the 1958 coup d’état restored democracy. The timeline in Eva Luna loosely follows the period of near-constant power struggles culminating in a revolutionary guerrilla movement, which seemingly achieves notable progress in the final chapters.

Though Eva herself is not overtly concerned with politics, a turbulent atmosphere of frequent coups and near-constant political violence forms the backdrop of her life. Allende draws on her real-life experiences to address the persistent problem of corruption in government. With power changing hands so many times without effecting real change, people lose faith in the government, causing significant social instability.