Zorro is a 2005 novel by Chilean author Isabel Allende. Its subject is the pulp hero Diego de la Vega, better known as El Zorro (The Fox), who was featured in an early 20th-century novel.
The novel takes the form of a biography and is the first origin story for this legendary character. In terms of material, it is a prequel to Johnston McCulley's 1919 novella The Curse of Capistrano, which first featured the character of Zorro. The story incorporates details from a variety of works that have featured the pulp hero, including the 1998 film The Mask of Zorro.
taken from
Isabel Allende's website
A swashbuckling adventure story, Zorro reveals the history behind the legendary masked man.
Born in Southern California in the late eighteenth century, Diego de la Vega is a child of two worlds. His father is an aristocratic Spanish military man turned landowner, his mother a Shoshone warrior. From his father, Diego receives lessons in the art of fencing and in cattle branding; from his maternal grandmother, White Owl, he learns the ways of her tribe. As a child he also witnesses the brutal injustices dealt Native Americans by European settlers and begins to feel the inner conflict of his dual heritage.
At the age of sixteen, Diego is sent to Barcelona to be educated. Spain is chafing under the corruption of Napoleonic rule, and Diego, following the example of his celebrated fencing master, joins La Justicia, a secret underground resistance movement devoted to helping the powerless and the poor. With this tumultuous period as a backdrop, Diego falls in love, saves the persecuted, and confronts a great rival who emerges from the world of privilege. After many adventures—duels at dawn, fierce battles with pirates at sea, and daring rescues—Diego de la Vega, a.k.a. Zorro, returns to America to reclaim the hacienda where he was raised and to seek justice for all who cannot fight for it themselves.
Spanning the globe from California to Barcelona—the New World and the Old—Zorro celebrates the birth of a great hero and legend.
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