Portrait in Sepia (Spanish: Retrato en sepia) was published by Plaza & Janés in 2000 and continues the family saga begun in Daughter of Fortune, following the next generation. Aurora del Valle — granddaughter of Eliza Sommers and the Chinese healer Tao Chi’en — grows up in San Francisco’s Chinatown and later in Chile, haunted by a recurring nightmare whose origin she cannot remember. Her quest to understand this nightmare — and the family secrets it conceals — drives the novel’s plot.
Aurora becomes a photographer, and photography provides both the novel’s central metaphor (the sepia-toned portrait as a way of fixing the past) and its method of investigation (Aurora uses her camera to see what others prefer to hide). The novel moves between San Francisco and Chile at the turn of the twentieth century, encompassing the Chilean Civil War of 1891, the social transformation of the early 1900s, and the complex racial and cultural identities of a family that spans Chinese, Chilean, English, and American heritage.
The novel connects to The House of the Spirits through the character of Severo del Valle (who appears in both novels), creating a vast fictional family tree that spans the entire history of Chile from the colonial period through the twentieth century. Allende’s ambition — to write the great novel of Chilean history through the lens of family — finds its fullest expression across these interconnected works.
Collecting Portrait in Sepia
First Spanish edition (Plaza & Janés, Barcelona, 2000): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First Spanish edition: $15–$30
- First English edition (HarperCollins, 2001): $10–$20
- Signed copies: $25–$60