Hi, folks. As a responsible person, here I am serving my quarantine, as it should be. Thank God I have a huge library, full of books that I have not yet read and others that although I have already read, I would gladly read again. I usually read a lot of poetry, but this week I selected a novel. The novel I selected was given to me last year and I hadn't read it yet: Beyond Winter, by the famous writer Isabel Allende.

As we all know, Isabel Allende became famous with the novel The House of the Spirits (1982), which was later made into a movie, giving more renown and popularity to the author, who is considered one of the most read living writers in the Spanish language. We also know that most of her novels revolve around autobiographical elements that not only make her stories more interesting, but also make them more controversial and even more successful in sales. Beyond winter (2017) does not escape this biographical line, of course, with some fictional elements that give more movement to the plot.

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Beyond Winter (Más allá del invierno) tells the story of three characters (Lucía Maraz, Richard Bowmaster and Evelyn Ortega) who, due to a fortuitous situation, have to relate to each other and begin a journey that will not only make us aware of their personal and past stories, but also observe how their friendship is strengthened. This fortuitous element (which we are not going to mention so as not to make a spoiler) triggers the journey and will make one of the characters take an inner journey in each chapter, unveiling their stories and feelings. Beyond that journey, there is a connecting element between these three characters and that is migration, and it is in this element that I would like to stop, since it seems to me that it is in force and because in particular, as a Venezuelan, it touches me directly.

When we read the story of Richard Bowmaster, a professor at a university in the United States, we understand that there is a type of immigrant who can afford certain freedoms, but who in the end can be absorbed by a foreign culture and this can lead him to perdition. It should be pointed out that Richard's first contact with migration was through his father, Joseph Bowmaster, who is a German and lived the role of refugee in his own flesh and who also fights for the rights of immigrants. There is a passage in the novel where we can perceive the solidarity that Joseph has with others and that he wishes to transmit to his son:

Joseph took his son on his relief walks, as Chloe called them. They were going to leave food and clothing donated by the churches and synagogue to the poorest families in the Bronx, both Jewish and Christian. "The needy are not asked who they are or where they come from, Richard. We are all equal in misfortune," Joseph told his son.

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But this is not the only experience Richard has with migration, since, according to his memories, we can know that he was married to a Brazilian woman and lived in that South American country for several years. There, he lived an unbridled life that led him to fall into drugs and alcohol and to have borderline experiences such as death. With this character we can see the different vision of the American foreigner, who can also be found strange and even rejected in the South American country.

On the other hand, we have Lucia Maraz, who says that because of the government of her country of origin, Chile, she must leave and emigrate to other countries, such as Venezuela, Canada and even the United States. The migration of this character is a product of the political situation of her country, but then it becomes a search for better job opportunities and even to forget and make a new life.

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In the last case there is Evelyn Ortega, a Guatemalan woman with a more recent history. This character is forced to flee her country of origin because of the famous Mara Salvatrucha gang. As we all know, this Central American gang is one of the reasons why many families are forced to flee from countries such as El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico. Evelyn is the youngest character of the three and is an illegal immigrant in the United States in the time of Donald Trump, so his story is a reflection of all the vicissitudes that an immigrant must live today to cross the borders and be saved from misery, crime, death.

When we read Beyond Winter we realize that the process of migration is not an easy one. It is done out of necessity, conscious of the sacrifice that must be made not only to leave the family, but to leave the country, our roots, and very especially, to adapt to the new country, which will not always receive you with open arms and with the best opportunities. For example, in this novel we see that the immigrant can suffer from rejection and discrimination, and that this rejection is in all countries without distinction of race. Hence we can see that Evelyn Ortega, who is a Guatemalan, is rejected by some Mexicans, or Richard Bowmaster, who is American, is rejected in Brazil. However, and I think this is a valuable thing in this novel, it also talks about the solidarity, the love, the moral support, the protection that immigrants can find in that great journey of life they have decided to take.

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When I finished the novel, I couldn't stop thinking about Venezuela. The inhabitants of my country have had to leave in search of a better life, to flee from the unleashed crime and the economic, social and political despair within Venezuela. In other words, our citizens may have assets, but they do not have social and mental stability. Our citizens, sometimes very professionally qualified, must go out and play the role of cooks, waiters, hawkers, because they prefer to do any job out there and not stay in our country.

While it is true that many times Venezuelans are not well received abroad, examples abound of the different scorn we have received even from countries we thought were brothers, also, thank God, as in the novel, we have received the unconditional help of angels who, although they are from other countries, know that we are inhabitants of the same heaven. In short, Beyond Winter is an easy to read, entertaining novel with a very current story. I recommend it.

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Written by: @nancybriti

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