Isabel Allende

Writer

• Born: August 2, 1942
• Place of Birth: Lima, Peru

A prolific novelist, Allende was recognized in 2010 as the most widely read Latin American female writer of all time. Her writings are available in more than twenty languages. Her best known work is The House of the Spirits (1982).

Early Life

Isabel Allende Llona was born on August 2, 1942, to Tomás Allende and Francisca Llona in Lima, Peru, while her father was on diplomatic duty. She is the eldest of three children. After Francisca separated from her husband in 1945, the family returned to Chile. Francisca soon met Ramon Huidobro, a diplomat whom she would accompany to his posts in Bolivia and Lebanon between 1953 and 1958. Allende’s family returned to Chile in 1958 because of the Suez Canal Crisis.

In 1958, Allende met engineer Miguel Frias, whom she married in 1962. The couple had two children—Paula, born in 1963, and Nicolas, born in 1966. From 1959 to 1965, Allende worked for the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization. She traveled throughout Europe and lived in Switzerland and Belgium with her husband and daughter. Allende returned to Chile and began her career as a journalist in 1967 with the well-regarded magazine Paula.

From 1967 to 1974, as a member of the editorial team, she produced feminist articles and wrote a column of humorous content called “The Impertinent Ones.” In 1973 and 1974, she wrote for children’s magazine Mampato and penned the short stories “The Grandmother Panchita” and “Mice and Mouse” (“Lauchas y lauchones”). Also from this period are her comical articles titled “Civilize your Troglodyte.” Parallel to these projects she worked as a television host for two popular Chilean programs, one based on interviews and the other on witty news commentary. In 1972, her play The Embassador was staged.

In 1970, Allende’s uncle Salvador Allende was elected to the presidency in Chile, but he was ousted by Augusto Pinochet’s coup d’état in 1973. Because of the repression in Chile under the military regime, Allende’s family moved to Venezuela in 1975. There she continued her career as a reporter at El Nacional newspaper in Caracas. She also worked as school director from 1979 to 1982 at Morocco College in Caracas. In 1981, upon receiving news that her ninety-nine-year-old grandfather was dying in Chile, Allende decided to write him a letter. It turned out to be a long manuscript recounting memories and events related to the suffering her family had endured after the coup. This text, which was meant for her dying grandfather, became The House of the Spirits, Allende’s first bestseller, published in 1982.

Life’s Work

Allende’s prolific period as a novelist began with The House of the Spirits. This novel was translated into English in 1985 and sold millions of copies in the United States. It was adapted into a Hollywood film in 1993, starring Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, and Antonio Banderas. In 1984, Allende published The Porcelain Fat Woman and Of Love and Shadows. The latter work also was made into a film that won second place at the Havana Film Festival in 1994. In 1987, Allende experienced both continued success and despair: her celebrated novel Eva Luna was published; however, she also separated from her husband, Frias.

By that time, Allende already had received many prizes and honors. In 1983, The House of the Spirits was named best novel of the year in her native country and received the Grand Prix d’Evasion in France in 1984. She also won awards for best novel in Mexico in 1986; the Quality Paperback Book Club’s New Voice Award in the United States in 1986; and the Library Journal’s Best Book Award in 1988. She also received a nomination for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in 1987.

In 1988, Allende married Willie Gordon, an American with whom she moved to San Rafael, California. The same year, her native country restored democracy under the transitional government of Patricio Aylwin. Allende was able to return to Chile in 1990 to enjoy her country’s recognition. The nation granted her the Gabriela Mistral Award for education and cultural excellence. The successful release of Allende’s book The Infinite Plan in 1991 was shadowed by a family tragedy. Allende’s daughter Paula suffered an attack of porphyria, a disease that put her in coma on December 6 the same year. Paula died one year later at age twenty-eight in Allende’s home in California.

Tragedy was followed by immense achievements. Allende’s novels continued to enjoy tremendous acceptance worldwide and most received distinctions. She published Paula (1994), Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses (1997), Daughter of Fortune (1999), Portrait in Sepia (2000), City of the Beasts (2002), and My Invented Country: A Nostalgic Journey Through Chile (2003). City of the Beasts is the first part of a trilogy whose sequels are Kingdom of the Golden Dragon (2004) and Forest of the Pygmies (2005). In 2006, she published Inés of My Soul, and in 2007 The Sum of Our Days was released. In 2009, she wrote two novels: Island Beneath the Sea and Friends Are Friends.

She continued writing steadily in the 2010s and 2020s, publishing Maya's Notebook in 2011, Ripper in 2014, and The Japanese Lover in 2015. She published In the Midst of Winter in 2017, A Long Petal of the Sea in 2019, Violeta in 2022, and The Wind Knows My Name in 2023.

Allende’s works continue to garner recognition around the globe. She received the Independent Foreign Fiction Award of England (1993) and the following American prizes: the Brandeis University Major Book Collection Award (1993), the Feminist of the Year Award (1994), the Critics’ Choice Award (1996), the Sara Lee Foundation Award, and more than twenty other international honors. Crowning her distinctions are the 1998 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize for helping make the world a more beautiful place. In 2008, she received an honorary doctorate from San Francisco State University, and US president Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014.

Significance

With her writings, Allende has traversed frontiers, broadening international readers’ understanding of Latin American culture and history. Allende is often compared to other Hispanic writers of her generation, and some scholars place her among what is known as the Latin American Boom that took place in the 1960s and 1970s. Others call her a post-Boom novelist because her novels began appearing in the 1980s. Although she shares techniques with both periods, she is unique in the sense that her works typically have feminist themes that appeal to a wide range of readers.

Allende’s dedication to writing fiction has placed her as one of the world’s most widely read novelists, and she has broadened the road for female writers in general. In 2010, she was nominated for the National Literary Prize of Chile, the most distinguished award in her country. In 2018, she received the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

Bibliography

Allende, Isabel. Interview by Pamela Paul. By the Book: Writers on Literature and the Literary Life from the New York Times Book Review. New York: Holt, 2014. 158–161. Print.

Allende, Isabel. "How to Live Passionately—No Matter Your Age." TED. TED Conferences, Mar. 2014. Web. 22 Sept. 2015.

Allende, Isabel. "Novelist Isabel Allende on Her LIterary Career and Memories of Chile during the CIA-Backed Coup." Interview by Amy Goodman. Democracy Now. Democracy Now, 28 Nov. 2014. Web. 22 Sept. 2015.

Castellucci, Karen. Isabel Allende: A Critical Companion. Westport: Greenwood, 2003. Print.

Correa Zapata, Celia. Isabel Allende: Life and Spirit. Houston: Arte Público, 2002. Print.

Feal, Rosemary G., and Ivette E. Miller, eds. Isabel Allende Today: An Anthology of Essays. Pittsburgh: Latin American Literary Review P, 2002. Print.

Taladrid, Stephanie. "Isabel Allende's Vision of History." The New Yorker, 11 Sept. 2023, www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/isabel-allendes-vision-of-history. Accessed 3 Sept. 2024.