Born: Lima, Peru, 2 August 1942. Niece and goddaughter of former Chilean President Salvador Allende who died in the military takeover in 1973. Education: Graduated from a private high school in Santiago, Chile, 1959. Family: Married 1) Miguel Fnas, 1962 (divorced, 1987), one daughter (deceased) and one son; 2) William Gordon, 1988; one stepson. Career: Secretary, United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, Santiago, Chile, 1959-65; worked as a journalist, editor and advice columnist for the magazine Paula from 1967-74; interviewer for Channel 13/Channel 7 television station 1970-75; worked on movie newsreels, 1973-75; administrator, Colegio Marroco, Caracas, Venezuela, 1979-82; guest teacher, Montclair State College, New Jersey, 1985, and University of Virginia, 1988; Gildersleeve Lecturer, Barnard College, New York, 1988; taught creative writing at the University of California, Berkeley, 1989. Lives in San Rafael, California. Awards: Best Novel of the Year, Chile, 1983; ”Panorama Literario,” Chile, 1983; Author of the Year, Germany, 1984; Book of the Year, Germany, 1984; ”Grand Prix d’Evasion,” France, 1984; ”Radio Television Belga: Point de Mire,” Belguim, 1985; Colima Literary prize, Mexico, 1986; ”XV Premio Internazionale I Migliori Dell’Anno,” Italy, 1987; Book of the Year, Switzerland, 1987; Library Journal’s Best Book, United States, 1988; Before Columbus Foundation award, United States, 1988; Best Novel, Mexico, 1985; Author of the Year, Germany, 1986; Freedom to Write Pen Club, United States, 1991;”XLI Bancarella,” Italy,1993; Independent Foreign Fiction, England, 1993; Brandeis University Major Book Collection, USA 1993; ”Feminist of the Year award,” The Feminist Majority Foundation, United States, 1994; ”Condecoracion Gabriela Mistral,” Chile, 1994; ”Critics Choice,” United States, 1996; ”Books to Remember,” American Library Association, United States, 1996; ”Books to Remember,” The New York Public Library; ”Malaparte” Amici di Capri, Italy, 1998; ”Donna Citta Di Roma,” Italy, 1998; ”Dorothy and Lilian Gish prize for Excellence in the Arts,” United States, 1998; ”Lee Foundation,” United States, 1998. Professor of Literature Honoris Causae, University of Chile, 1991; Doctor of Letters at SUNY, United States, 1991; Doctor of Humane Letters at Florida Atlantic University, United States, 1996. Member: Academy of Arts and Sciences, Puerto Rico, 1995; ”Academia de la Lengua,” Chile, 1989.
Publications
Fiction
Civilice a su troglodita: Los impertinentes de Isabel Allende (humor). 1974.
La casa de los espiritus (novel). 1982; as The House of the Spirits by Magda Bogin, 1985.
La gorda de porcelana (juvenile literature). 1983.
De amor y de sombra (novel). 1984; as Of Love and Shadows by Margaret Sayers Peden, 1987.
Eva Luna (novel). 1987; as Eva Luna by Margaret Sayers Peden, 1988.
Cuentos de Eva Luna (short stories). 1989; as The Stories of Eva Luna by Margaret Sayers Peden, 1991.
El plan infinito (novel). 1991; as The Infinite Plan by Margaret Sayers Peden, 1993.
Afrodita: Recetas, cuentos y otros afrodisiacos. 1997; as Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses by Margaret Sayers Peden, 1998. Hija de lafortuna (novel). 1999.
Retrato en sepia (novel). 2001.
Other
Paula (memoirs/ autobiography). 1994; translated by Margaret Say-ers Peden, 1995
Critical Studies:
”Entrevista a Isabel Allende/Interview with Isabel Allende” by Marjorie Agosfn, translated by Cola Franzen in, Imagine vol. 1, no. 2, Winter, 1984; Narrative Magic in the Fiction of Isabel Allende by Patricia Hart, 1989; ”A Passage to Andorgyny: Isabel Allende’s La casa de los espiritus" by Linda Gould Levine, in In the Feminine Mode: Essays on Hispanic Women Writers, edited by Noel Valis and Carol Maier, 1990; Isabel Allende, in Spanish American Women Writers: A Bio-bibliographical Source Book by Linda Gould Levine, edited by Diane Marting, 1990; Critical Approaches to Isabel Allende’s Novels, edited by Sonia Riquelme Rojas and Edna Aguirre Rehbein, 1991.
Isabel Allende is one of the most widely read Latin American women authors, her work having been translated into some thirty languages. A great deal of Isabel Allende’s appeal to international readers is the images she presents of Chile and Latin America. She portrays it as a dichotomy and a world of radical differences with rich and poor, military coups, revolutionary governments, passionate women and men, women with magical powers and men who can be monsters, where there exits poets alongside of torturers and there exist enthralling storytellers. After the military coup of 1973, Allende and her family moved to Venezuela. While in Venezuela, she wrote her first novel La casa de los espiritus (The House of the Spirits). The theme of exile is present in Eva Luna, De amor y de sombra (Of Love and Shadows), Daughter of Fortune, and the autobiographical Paula besides The House of the Spirits.
Her second novel, Of Love and Shadows also takes place in an unnamed Latin American country, which is of course Chile under the military dictatorship of General Pinochet. It details the coming of age of a young upper class journalist who develops a political consciousness, as she realizes things are not what they seem on the surface. She and her photographer lover investigate a boarded up mine discovering ”disappeared” buried there. Afterwards, they are forced to flee the country. The novel is suspenseful as the personal dramas reveal themselves and take shape. She skillfully maintains the tension and terror inherent in life under a military dictatorship while at the same time developing the love story between the journalist and her photographer. The novel is based, in part, on events that took place at Lonquen mine. Here as she does in The House of the Spirits, Allende constructs fiction on the base of historical reality, which is the story of Latin American politics and its effects on the lives of her people.
Her next works are Eva Luna and Cuentos de Eva Luna (The Stories of Eva Luna) where the theme of dictatorship is not directly visible although, they are imbued with revolutionary politics. Eva Luna is set in Venezuela and like her previous novels recounts the life of the protagonist. It is a coming of age novel, with a picaresque element as Eva encounters and becomes friends with a variety of people: Huberto Naranjo, a future guerrilla fighter; Halabf, a Turkish merchant; Mimf the transsexual; and Elvira, who is a surrogate grandmother. Each contributes to Eva’s development as a storyteller. Allende weaves together the personal story of the illegitimate orphan, Eva Luna, who becomes a scriptwriter and storyteller with that of Rolf Carle, a filmmaker and Austrian immigrant, who carries the burden of his father having been a Nazi, both of whom come of age in this novel. The Stories of Eva Luna are twenty-three short stories whose theme centers around love, supposedly written by Eva Luna during the previous novel.
Again taking a page from her life, El plan infinito (The Infinite Plan) is based on the life of William Gordon (who is today her husband) and is set in the western United States and explores the drug culture, Viet Nam and the trauma of war. Paula is more autobiographical than other works as she narrates her daughter’s death. Like The House of the Spirits, it too began as a letter to her daughter. This work rises above the sentimentality of a memoir. After the death of Paula, Allende was unable to write until she thought of the delights of food and came up with Afrodita: Recetas, cuentos y otros afrodisiacos (Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses), which is both a cookbook and a playful memoir.
The story of Eliza Sommers is told in Daughter of Fortune when a young Chilean women travels to California during the Gold Rush in search of love. Here again we see the theme of exile. Eliza is left on the doorstep of Jeremy Sommers at birth. His sister Rose and brother John convince him to keep the child who grows up between two worlds—Rose’s liberal lifestyle and the housekeeper Mama Fresia who teaches her about herbs and cooking. Joaquin Andieta awakens Eliza’s adolescent passions; he leaves for San Francisco and with the help of Mama Fresia, Eliza sets sail for California too. Once in California, the novel recounts Eliza’s adventures. Daughter of Fortune reiterates many of the characteristics of Allende’s previous novels, beginning with the strong female characters. Both Rose and Eliza break and trespass on traditional roles and own their own destinies. Also evident is the use of national myths but not through a military coup—rather by way of the role Chileans played in the Gold Rush, thereby they are exiled from their homeland and are marginalized. Allende admitted that this topic is pure fiction and is the one that least deals with her.
Considered in part a magic realist, Allende is also part of the Latin American feminist awakening, working with the themes of feminism, politics, and writing as an art. Allende is not passive but passionate about politics, history, and her society. The majority of her protagonists are marginalized and/or exiled from their home country. She continues to prove her capacity and capability as an engaging writer who weaves intriguing stories of high intensity in a concise and straightforward way. Isabel Allende’s novels depict strong female characters that possess paranormal characteristics a la magical realism. Her female protagonists are able to function successfully in reality when dictated by events such as social injustice. Her male characters are sensitive revolutionaries engaged in political intrigue and social issues. Critics have pointed out and noted as a distraction that an overriding theme is the search for the one perfect male partner to complete, as many of her novels can be viewed as sentimental love stories. Nevertheless, there is intrinsic entertainment in a good love story, particularly when it is combined with well-formed prose intertwined and permeated with history, politics, and a dash of the unknown. As many readers are unfamiliar with Latin America, this is a way to make the message more palatable. Isabel Allende may be one of a handful of Latin American women who have garnered recognition outside the academic community and become well known to the general reading public.
