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Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende Llona,is a Chilean-American novelist born in Lima, Peru; 2 August 1942. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the "magic realist" tradition, is one of the first successful women novelists in Latin America. She is largely famous for her contributions to Latin-American literature, novels such as The House of the Spirits (La casa de los espíritus (1982) and City of the Beasts (La ciudad de las bestias) (2002), which have been hugely successful. She has written novels based in part on her own experiences, often focusing on the experiences of women, weaving myth and realism together. She has lectured and done extensive book tours and has taught literature at ten US colleges. Having adopted American citizenship in 2003, she currently resides in California along with her husband.

Beginning in 1967, Allende was on the editorial staff for Paula magazine, and from 1969 to 1974 for the children's magazine Mampato, where she later was the Editor. She published two children's stories, La Abuela Panchita (Grandmother Panchita) and Lauchas y Lauchones, as well as a collection of articles, Civilice a Su Troglodita. She also worked in Chilean television production for channels 7 (humorous programes) and 13 from 1970 to 1974. As a journalist, she once sought an interview with Pablo Neruda, a notable Chilean poet. Neruda declined, telling her she had too much imagination to be a journalist, and should be a novelist instead. He also advised her to compile her satirical columns in book form. She did so, and this became her first published book. In 1973, Allende's play El Embajador played in Santiago, a few months before she was forced to flee the country due to the coup.

In Allende's time in Venezuela, she was a freelance journalist for El Nacional in Caracas from 1976-83 and an administrator of the Marrocco School in Caracas from 1979-83.

In 1981, when Allende learned that her grandfather, aged 99, was on his deathbed, she started writing him a letter that later evolved into a book manuscript, The House of the Spirits (1982); the intent of this work was to exorcise the ghosts of the Pinochet dictatorship. The book was a great success; Allende was compared to Gabriel Garcia Marquez as an author of the style known as magical realism.

Allende's books have since became known for their vivid storytelling. Although Allende is often lumped together with the literary style of Magical realism, her works often display elements of post-Boom literature, and as such her style cannot be described as purely adhering to Magical Realism. Isabel also holds to a very methodical, some would say menacing, literary routine. She writes using a computer, working Monday through Saturday, 9:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M. "I always start on January 8," Allende stated; "a tradition she began in 1981 with a letter she wrote to her dying grandfather that would become the groundwork for her first novel, The House of the Spirits." Allende is also quoted as saying:

In January 8, 1981, I was living in Venezuela and I received a phone call that my beloved grandfather was dying. I began a letter for him that later became my first novel, The House of The Spirits. It was such a lucky book from the very beginning, that I kept that lucky date to start.

Allende's book Paula (1995) is a memoir of her childhood in Santiago, and her years in exile. It was written in the form of a letter to her daughter Paula, who lay in a coma in the hospital in Spain. Paula had porphyria and during a crisis she actually fell into a coma then vegetative state due to a medication error while the hospital she was in was on strike. She was severely brain damaged and her mother took her to California where she died a year later in 1992.

Reportedly, "Allende's impact on not only Latin American literature but also on world literature cannot be overestimated."[1] The Los Angeles Times has called Isabel Allende "a genius," and she has received many international awards, including the prestigious Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, granted to writers "who have contributed to the beauty of the world." She is also the founder of the Isabel Allende Foundation, which is "dedicated to supporting programs that promote and preserve the fundamental rights of women and children to be empowered and protected." She has been recently called a "literary legend" by Latino Leaders magazine, which named Allende as third most influential Latino leader in the world in their 2007 article. Allende's novels have been translated into 30 languages and sold more than 51 million copies.

There are three movies based on her novels currently in production--Aphrodite, Eva Luna and Gift for a Sweetheart. Her last book is a memoir, The Sum of Our Days. It was published in 2008 and looks at her recent life with her immediate family, which includes her grown son, Nicolás; second husband, William Gordon; and several grandchildren.

Works

• The Sum of Our Days: A Memoir (2008) La suma de los dias
• Sum of Days (2007) La suma de los dias
• Ines of My Soul (2006) Ines del Alma Mia
• Zorro (2005) El Zorro
• Forest of the Pygmies (2005) El bosque de los pigmeos
• Kingdom of the Golden Dragon (2004) El reino del dragon del oro
• My Invented Country (2003) Mi país inventado
• City of the Beasts (2002) La ciudad de las bestias
• Portrait in Sepia (2000) Retrato en sepia
• Daughter of Fortune (1999) Hija de la fortuna
• Aphrodite (1998) Afrodita
• Paula (1995)
• The Infinite Plan (1991) El plan infinito
• The Stories of Eva Luna (1989) Cuentos de Eva Luna
• Eva Luna (1987)
• Of Love and Shadows (1985) De amor y de sombra
• The Porcelain Fat Lady (1984) La gorda de porcelana
• The House of the Spirits (1982) La casa de los espiritus