Isabel Allende
Chilean writer in the magic realist tradition who is considered one of the first successful woman novelists in Latin America.
Isabel Allende was born in Lima, Peru in 1942, the daughter of a Chilean diplomat. After her parents’ divorce, she spent her childhood in her maternal grandparents’ household, being especially close to her grandmother, a believer in the occult. When Allende’s mother remarried another diplomat, Isabel left Chile to live during her adolescence in Bolivia, the Middle East, and Europe.
Allende worked as a journalist in Chile (women’s magazine “Paula”, children’s magazine “Mampato”, television shows and movie documentaries) from 1964 to 1973, when she was forced to flee to Venezuela after the assassination (1973) of her uncle, Chilean president Salvador Allende Gossens by Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, who instituted a repressive military dictatorship backed by the United States until 1990.
She has also worked as a journalist from 1975 to 1984 in Venezuela (newspaper “El Nacional”) and has Published articles in newspapers and magazines in America and Europe and taught Literature at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville Montclair College, New Jersey and the University of California, Berkeley.
In 1981 she began writing a letter to her terminally ill grandfather that evolved into her first novel, La casa de los espíritus/The House of the Spirits in 1982. It was followed by the novels De amor y de sombra/Of Love and Shadows (1984), Eva Luna (1985), and El plan infinito/The Infinite Plan (1991) and a collection of short stories entitled Cuentos de Eva Luna/The Stories of Eva Luna (1989).
Allende’s works are written in the style of magic realism, which is the use of fantasy and myth in realistic fiction, and often portray South American politics. Her first four works reflect her own experiences and examine the role of women in Latin America. El plan infinito/The infinite plan, however, is set in the United States, and its protagonist is male.
Her first nonfiction work, Paula (1994, translated 1995), was written as a letter to her daughter, who, afflicted with a hereditary blood disease, had fallen into a coma (she died in 1992).
Her more recent books are Aphrodite (recipes, stories and other aphrodisiacs), Hija de la fortuna/Daughter of fortune, Retrato en sepia/Portrait in Sepia, La ciudad de las bestias/City of the Beasts. Then Mi Pais Inventado : Un Paseo Nostalgico por Chile/My invented country and El reino del dragon de oro/Kingdom of the Golden Dragon. Her books
The house of the Spirits: Isabel Allende’s compelling magical-realist saga about the Trueba family in Chile is a political and social history of the country, as well as a powerful novel of family relationships. The novel revolves around the lives of the larger-than-life patriarch Esteban, his elusive wife Clara, their rebellious daughter Blanca, and Blanca’s out-of-wedlock child Alba, who leads the family into the future.
Of Love and Shadows: Isabel Allende transports us to a Latin American country in the grip of a military dictatorship, where Irene Beltran, an upperclass journalist, and Francisco Leal, a photographer son of a Marxist professor together discover a hideous crime. They also discover how far they dare go in search of the truth in a nation of terror . . . and how very much they risk.
The infinite Plan: Isabel Allende’s first novel to be set in America. The story of a man’s struggle to survive and rise above his past in the barrio and the Vietnam War.
Paula: this autobiography from Isabel Allende begins in December 1991, during a period when Allende’s daughter Paula became gravely ill and fell into a coma. The author began her account during the long hours at the hospital and decided to record the story of her family for her unconscious daughter in an attempt to “bring [her] back to life.” As in her novels, Allende conjures up the magical and questions the gods. There are anecdotes of her youthful years, Chile’s physical and political landscape, the military coup of 1973, and her family’s exile.
Aprodite: Allende wrote this book as a way of reconnecting with the world after the death of her daughter. An infectious celebration of life, lust, and food, it provides recipes for aphrodisiacs, as well as poems, stories, personal anecdotes, and tips on how to attract a mate.
Daughter of Fortune: during the California Gold Rush, Eliza Sommers, raised as an adopted daughter in a wealthy Chilean family, follows her flamboyant lover to California–partly as a way of beginning her life over again. Allende’s historical adventure novel touches on feminist themes such as the repressed upbringing of girls in Chile, the disgraceful treatment of Chinese prostitutes in America, and the rough life of frontier women.
Portrait in Sepia: in this sequel to Daughter of Fortune, Aurora del Valle, who belongs to a large and colorful Chilean family, looks back on the 30 years of her life and the events leading up to her birth, covering the years 1862 to 1910. In the process she provides a history of her family–including her beautiful mother, her Chinese grandfather, and her eccentric and obese grandmother Paulina.
City of the Beasts: accompanied by his grandmother, a writer for “International Geographic Magazine,” 15-year-old Alexander Cold travels to the Amazon on a mission to uncover the legendary Yeti. Their exploration team also includes an anthropologist and a doctor and is lead by a local guide and his daughter, Nadia. Before long, Alexander finds himself bonding with Nadia and uncovering a thrilling secret hidden deep within the rain forest.
My invented country: the author delves into the history, social mores and idiosyncrasies of Chile, where she was raised, showing, in the process, how that land has served as her muse. Two life-altering events inflect the peripatetic narration of this book: The military coup and violent death of her uncle, Salvador Allende Gossens, on September 11, 1973, sent her into exile and transformed her into a writer. The terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, on her newly adopted homeland, the United States, brought forth from Allende an overdue acknowledgment that she had indeed left home.
Kingdom of the Golden Dragon
