The Wind Knows My Name begins with Kristallnacht and ends with the current Covid-19 pandemic. Samuel Adler, a five-year-old Jewish boy, is sent to England in 1938 to hopefully survive the extermination of the Jews in Germany. The novel then moves to the present and weaves in the story of Marisol and Anita Diaz, a mother-daughter duo seeking refuge from personal danger in El Salvador. Other characters include Leticia Cordero (an aunt of Anita’s) who escaped El Salvador after the slaughter of her family. Selena Duran (a social worker) and Frank Angileri (an up-and-coming young lawyer) are working on getting asylum for the blind Anita.
This story blends the past and present in the characters’ stories, showing the effects of war and immigration on these two children, innocents who had nothing to do with the conflicts that led to their situations yet who suffer the most. Samuel and Anita survive—and do so well—with help from others, people who though they can’t replace the children’s missing families, can supply love and stability.
I found it disheartening to see that despite the eighty-year difference from Kristallnacht to the pandemic, human nature has not changed. And Allende reveals this so well, showing the same atrocities being committed by the Germans, by El Salvadorans, and by Americans (Marisol and Anita are separated at the border thanks to the Machiavellian dictates of President Trump in separating families).
I think the book could have benefitted from being longer. At 272 pages, it seems too short to handle these characters’ stories in depth. I’d like less telling and more showing of their inner workings.
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The Wind Knows My Name (Ballantine Books, June 6, 2023) is available through:
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