or ‘Ines of my soul/Ines del alma mia’ as the book is called in English/Spanish, made it onto my reading list as I was looking for something to read at the Oslo airport yesterday morning.

Always wanted to read something by Isabel Allende and this novel based on the colonisation of Chile was an interesting debut for me. Part of me love well done historic novels, another part of me tend to get a little saddened based on what is lost. That said I am no apologist, history is as the name implies history and while we still have to deal with the consequences of history today, there is little justice to be found trying to correct the past. Its better to spend energy trying to fix the issues of today than those of the past, although of course a lot of current problems have historic roots.

Anyway back to the book, it is written in the form of a self biography of Ines Suarez, a woman who played a key part in the establishment of Chile. It was nice to read a book with such a strong female character who maybe apart from a complete lack of doubt, seemed very believable in her ambitions, desires and dreams. I am sure the real Ines Suarez would be pretty happy about how she is depicted. Dealing with controversial parts of history, such as the colonial era is hard, but I think the book manages it pretty well. The books shows that as always, war is a dirty game and no matter how good your intentions are its next to impossible to come out of the endavour with clean hands. I definitely recommend reading this book to others.