Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende was born August 2, 1942 in Lima, Peru into a politically connected family. Her father’s first cousin was Salvador Allende, President of Chile from 1970 to 1973. Her father, Tomás Allende was the ambassador to Peru. After her father’s disappearance her mother relocated Isabel and her two siblings to her parents’ home in Santiago, Chile. In Chile, her mother met and married Ramón Huidobro, a diplomat to Bolivia and Beirut. Her family moved a lot because of her stepfather’s job.
According to Isabel’s home page she was married in 1962 at age 20 to Miguel Frías, they had two children Paula and Nicolás. It is amusing to think of the double life Isabel led. By day she was the dutiful, obedient wife raising two small children yet by night she was translating famous romance novelist Barbara Cartland’s romance books and she also became a journalist for a feminist’s magazine. Later, Isabel was fired from her romance book translation job. Unfortunately, she got caught making unauthorized dialog changes to make the women sound smarter and to the endings so that the fairytale endings where changed to a more self reliant, independent woman.
In 1959, she worked with United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization all over Europe that ended in 1965. In 1973, Isabel writes for the magazine Mampato and briefly directs the magazine. She has a very successful year; her play El embajador is performed in Santiago, she has two widely popular television shows on two different stations with two different formats. One is an interview format and another is a humorous show. On September 11, 1973 all of that ends in a coup led by Augusto Pinochet Ugarte. Her father’s first cousin, Salvador Allende was assassinated although the government claimed he committed suicide. Her family escaped assignation and Isabel moved to Venezuela to escape. She then became a columnist in a popular newspaper called El Nacional. She separated from her husband and moved to Spain for a couple of months in 1978 ultimately the marriage ended in 1988.
Isabel began writing a letter to her dying 99 year old grandfather with whom she lived as a child and always adored. It was that letter that would turn into the manuscript The House of the Spirits. The book received critical acclaim and was the career making book/play/movie. The House of Spirits draws on the supernatual with clairvoyance, spirits, and predictions. It is set in the time of the revolutions and shows the familial interactions coupled with a political upheaval and wealthy haciendas. Isabel paints the female characters as strong, independent women who endure physical harm, rapes, and repeated beatings and still maintain their strength of character. It becomes clear that Isabel draws on her personal experiences and uses stories and family members to create her main characters. The House of Spirits was performed in London and also was made into a movie with an all star cast which Meryl Streep, Antonio Banderas and Winona Ryder. The House of Spirits is voted the 13th of the top 100 books Germans should read. Seattle, Washington voted Isabelle as a must read author.

Isabel begins the next phase of her life as a prolific writer. Eva Luna is published in Spain the following year and is also translated into English and then published. In 1988 she married her second husband, Willie Gordon. Isabel goes onto publish more than sixteen titles for which she receives great critical acclaim and notoriety. Isabel is known for her particular style of writing, referred to as magical realism. What she does is she paints a real picture of every day happenings and events with believable characters and introduces non-real entities and makes them believable. For example, her characters have supernatural powers, bright green hair and are aware of the spirits around them. Isabel has received the Gabriela Mistral award. Isabel won the Feminist of the Year Award, The Feminist Majority Foundation, USA 1994. She is a highly decorated a celebrated author. For more information please visit http://www.isabelallende.com/index.htm