Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende at the Miami Book Fair International of 1990.
Born 2 August 1942 (1942-08-02) (age 68)
Lima, Peru
Occupation Author, Journalist
Nationality United States American
Ethnicity Chile Chilean
Notable work(s) The House of the Spirits
isabelallende.com

Isabel Allende Llona (born 2 August 1942) is a Chilean-American[1][2] writer. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the "magic realist" tradition, is one of the best-known female novelists in Latin America. She is largely famous for 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 commercially successful. Allende has been called "the world’s most widely read Spanish-language author".[3]

Her novels are sometimes based upon her own personal experiences and often pay homage to the lives of women, while weaving together elements of myth and realism. She has lectured extensively, and has also toured many American colleges to teach literature. Having adopted American citizenship in 2003, she currently resides in California with her husband. She is of Basque, Spanish, and Portuguese descent.[4][5]

Contents

Biography

Isabel Allende was born in Lima, Peru, the daughter of Francisca Llona Barros and Tomás Allende; the Chilean ambassador to Peru. Her father was a first cousin of Salvador Allende, President of Chile from 1970 to 1973; so Salvador is her first cousin once removed.[6][7][8] Many sources cite Allende as being Salvador Allende's niece (without specifying that the relationship is that Tomas and Salvador are cousins);[9] the confusion stems from Allende herself often referring to Salvador as her "'uncle" in her private life and public interviews,[10] because in Spanish a "first cousin once removed" is translated as "second degree uncle".

In 1945, after Tomás had disappeared,"[6] Isabel's mother relocated with her three children to Santiago, Chile, where they lived until 1953.[11][12]

Between 1953 and 1958, Allende's mother married Ramón Huidobro and moved a lot. Huidobro was a diplomat appointed to Bolivia and Beirut. In Bolivia, Allende attended a North American private school; and in Beirut, Lebanon she attended an English private school. The family returned to Chile in 1958. Allende was also briefly home-schooled. In her youth, she read widely, particularly the works of William Shakespeare. In 1970 Salvador Allende appointed Huidobro as ambassador to Argentina.[12]

While living in Chile, Allende finished her secondary studies and met engineering student Miguel Frías whom she married in 1962.[12] Reportedly, "Allende married early, into an Anglophile family and a kind of double life: at home she was the obedient wife and mother of two; in public she became, after a spell translating Barbara Cartland, a moderately well-known TV personality, a dramatist and a journalist on a feminist magazine."[6]

From 1959 to 1965, Allende worked with the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization in Santiago, Chile, then in Brussels, Belgium, and elsewhere in Europe. For a brief while in Chile, she also had a job translating romance novels from English to Spanish.[10] However, she was fired for making unauthorized changes to the dialogue of the heroines to make them sound more intelligent as well as altering the Cinderella endings to let the heroines find more independence and do good in the world.[13]

Allende and Frías' daughter Paula was born in 1963. In 1966, Allende again returned to Chile and her son Nicolás was born there that year.

Reportedly, "the CIA-backed military coup in September of 1973 (that brought Augusto Pinochet to power) changed everything" for Allende because "her name meant she was caught up in finding safe passage for those on the wanted lists" (helping until her mother and stepfather, a diplomat in Argentina, narrowly escaped assassination). When she herself was added to the list and began receiving death threats, she fled to Venezuela, where she stayed for 13 years.[6][14] In Venezuela she was a columnist for El Nacional, a main newspaper. In 1978 she began a temporary separation from Miguel Frías. She lived in Spain for two months, then returned to her marriage.[15]

Current Life

During a visit to California in 1988, Allende met her second husband, attorney Willie Gordon. In 1994 she was awarded the Gabriela Mistral Order of Merit, the first woman to receive this honor. In 1995, Allende obtained United States citizenship and currently lives in San Rafael, California. Most of her family lives near her with her son living "with his second wife and her grandchildren just down the hill; her son-in-law and his family live in the house she and her second husband, San Francisco lawyer and novelist William Gordon, vacated."[6]

In 2006, she was one of the eight flag bearers at the Opening Ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. In 2008, Allende received the honorary degree Doctor of Humane Letters from San Francisco State University for her "distinguished contributions as a literary artist and humanitarian."[16]

Foundation

Allende started the Isabel Allende Foundation on December 9, 1996 to pay homage to her daughter, Paula Frias; who experienced an untimely death in 1992. Frias was only twenty-eight years old when she died.[17] The foundation is "dedicated to supporting programs that promote and preserve the fundamental rights of women and children to be empowered and protected."[18]

Literary career

Isabel Allende (in red), 2007, California

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.[19] 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 programs) and 13 from 1970 to 1974.[19] As a journalist, she once sought an interview with Pablo Neruda, a notable Chilean poet. While Neruda accepted the interview, he told her that she had too much imagination to be a journalist and should be a novelist instead.[10] He also advised her to compile her satirical columns in book form.[20] 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 to 1983 and an administrator of the Marrocco School in Caracas from 1979 to 1983.[19]

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 García Márquez as an author of the style known as magical realism.[6]

Allende's books have since become 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. Allende also holds to a very methodical literary routine.[21] 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."[22] 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.[23]

Allende's book Paula (1995) is a memoir of her childhood in Santiago, Chile and the following years she spent in exile. It is written in the form of a letter to her daughter Paula, who was being treated at a hospital in Spain following a porphyria-induced coma. In 1991, an error in medication resulted in severe brain damage and left Paula in a persistent vegetative state. Allende had her moved to a hospital in California where she died on 6 December 1992.

Allende's novels have been translated into over 30 languages and sold more than 56 million copies.[24][25] There are three movies based on her novels currently in production — Aphrodite, Eva Luna and Gift for a Sweetheart.[18] Her 2008 book, The Sum of Our Days is a memoir. It focuses on her recent life with her immediate family, which includes her grown son, Nicolás; second husband, William Gordon; and several grandchildren.[24] A novel set in New Orleans was published in 2010, The Island Beneath the Sea.

Literary criticism

Despite or perhaps because of her commercial success and "being compared to Gabriel García Márquez," Allende has been the subject of negative criticism from other authors and literary critics — among them Roberto Bolaño and Gabriel García Márquez.[26] In an article published in Entre paréntesis, Bolaño writes that Allende's literature is anemic and compares it to a person on his deathbed.[27] Bolaño has been one of her harshest critics, saying that it is to give her credit to call her a writer and that she is rather a "writing machine".[28] Literary critic Harold Bloom concurs with Bolaño that Allende is a bad writer, and adds that she only reflects a determinate period and that afterwards everybody will have forgotten her.[28][29] Of Bolaño, Allende said to El Clarín that she is honoured to be represented by him as a Chilean, although she remembered Bolaño regarded her as trash.[30] In the same interview, Allende recognises that she has rarely had good criticism in Chile and that Chilean intellectuals "detest" her. Novelist Gonzalo Contreras says that "she commits a grave error, to confuse the commercial success with literary quality".[31] Allende disagrees with this assessment of her, and is she is also quoted as saying:

The fact people think that when you sell a lot of books you are not a serious writer is a great insult to the readership. To attack me personally for the sole reason that I sold a lot of books is unforgivable.[32]

Alternatively, it has been noted that "Allende's impact not only on Latin American literature but also on world literature cannot be overestimated."[18] The Los Angeles Times has called Allende "a genius,"[18] and she has received many international awards, including the prestigious Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize[18], granted to writers "who have contributed to the beauty of the world."[18] She has recently been called a "literary legend" by Latino Leaders Magazine, which in its 2007 article named Allende as the third most influential Latino leader in the world.[18]

Awards

Works

Other contributions

2215

See also

References

  1. ↑ Isabel Allende: "¡Escribo bien! Por lo menos admítanme eso" [Emol], 17 December 2009
    Vengo a Chile por lo menos tres veces al año, me comunico con Chile todos los días a través de Skype con mi mamá, estoy enterada de lo que pasa y cuando me preguntan 'qué eres' digo automáticamente 'chilena'. Vivo en América, pero me siento profundamente chilena en la manera de vivir, de ser: soy mandona, metete, dominante, intrusa, hospitalaria, tribal. (Isabel Allende)
  2. ↑ Isabel Allende webpage
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Isabel Allende Named to Council of Cervantes Institute. Latin American Herald Tribune. 23 October 2009
  4. ↑ MetroActive website
  5. ↑ Isabel Allende website
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 Review: The undefeated: A life in writing: Often compared to Gabriel García Márquez, Isabel Allende is more interested in telling stories about her own life, her difficult upbringing, marriage and her daughter's death. Aida Edemariam. The Guardian (London) - Final Edition. GUARDIAN REVIEW PAGES; Pg. 11. 28 April 2007 Isabel Allende website
  7. ↑ Shirley Christian, Santiago Journal; Allende's Widow Meditates Anew on a Day in '73, The New York Times. Section A; Page 4, Column 3; Foreign Desk. 5 June 1990
  8. ↑ Veronica Ross, Sewing didn't cut it for Inés, Guelph Mercury (Ontario, Canada). BOOKS; Pg. C5. 3 March 2007
  9. ↑ International: Chilean government rejects state funeral for Pinochet as thousands queue to pay respects: Body to be cremated amid fears of attacks on tomb: Capital quiet after victory parade turns into a riot. Jonathan Franklin, Santiago. The Guardian (London). GUARDIAN INTERNATIONAL PAGES; Pg. 14. 12 December 2006
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Isabel Allende: A Critical Companion. Karen Castellucci Cox; Greenwood Press, 2003. 184 pgs. p. 2-4.[1]
  11. ↑ Mirta Ojito, A Writer's Heartbeats Answer Two Calls. 28 July 2003. The New York Times The article notes that Allende has been told that her father left them and that due to Chile's anti-divorce laws, it was impossible for Allende's mother to divorce Tomás. Her mother, 83 when the article was published, and her stepfather, 87 at the time, have lived together for 57 years, but they are still not recognized in Chile as married.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 www.isabelallende.com Isabel Allende website
  13. ↑ Alexandra Alter, Isabel Allende on Superstition and Memory. The Wall Street Journal, p. W4, 23 April 2010. " . . she often changed the dialogue and endings to make the heroines seem smarter."
  14. ↑ A Writer's Heartbeats Answer Two Calls. The New York Times. 28 July 2003 The New York Times article notes that she left Chile in 1975.
  15. ↑ Isabel Allende website
  16. ↑ San Francisco State University 2008 Commencement Program
  17. ↑ Isabel Allende Foundation
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 18.4 18.5 18.6 The list 101 top leaders of the Latino community in the U.S; Cover story. Allen, Kerri; Miller, Corina; Socorro, Dalia; Stewart, Graeme. Latino Leaders Pg. 24(27) Vol. 8 No. 4 ISSN: 1529-3998. 1 June 2007
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 Life at a glance. The Guardian (London). Guardian Saturday Pages; Pg. 6. 5 February 2000
  20. ↑ Wall Street Journal p. W4, 23 April 2010: " . . interviewed Pablo Neruda, the poet told her that she'd make a better novelist than a reporter. "I think he saw that I was a liar. As a journalist I could not be objective. I would make up stories . . . At the time I was hurt because he said I was the worst journalist.""
  21. ↑ LATIN AMERICA'S SCHEHERAZADE; Drawing on dreams, myths, and memories, Chilean novelist Isabel Allende weaves fantastical tales in which reality and the absurd intersect. Fernando Gonzalez. The Boston Globe MAGAZINE; Pg. 14. 25 April 1993
  22. ↑ Allende, heroine 'Ines' are kindred spirits. Javier Erik Olvera. Inside Bay Area (California). BAY AREA LIVING; Home and Garden. 25 November 2006
  23. ↑ Isabel Allende
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 This old "House" opened a lot of doors for author Allende; Theater preview. Misha Berson. The Seattle Times ROP ZONE; Ticket; Pg. H44. 1 June 2007
  25. ↑ Wall Street Journal p. W4, 23 April 2010
  26. ↑ Joanne Leedom-Ackerman
  27. ↑ Bolaño, Roberto. Entre paréntesis, page 102: Es decir la literatura de Allende es mala, pero está viva, es anémica, como muchos latinoamericanos, pero está viva. No va a vivir mucho tiempo, como muchos enfermos, pero ahora está viva.
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 Los éxitos y las críticas El Clarin. 9 February 2003
    Isabel Allende es una muy mala escritora y sólo refleja un período determinado. Después todos se olvidarán de ella. (Harold Bloom)
    Me parece una mala escritora, simple y llanamente, y llamarla escritora es darle cancha. Ni siquiera creo que Isabel Allende sea una escritora, es una escribidora. (Roberto Bolaño)
  29. ↑ Isabel Allende (Bloom's Modern Critical Views) ISBN 0791070395 ISBN 978-0791070390
  30. ↑ Isabel Allende : “Chile es un país bélico por naturaleza” (Spanish), El Clarín de Chile, 20 September 2009
    Para nosotros como chilenos es un honor que Bolaño nos represente. Sin embargo, hay que recordar que Bolaño consideraba que yo era una basura pero eso no le quita ninguna merito. (Isabel Allende)
    La verdad es que en Chile nunca o muy rara vez he tenido una buena crítica. Y pese a que tengo innumerables lectores y hasta se piratean mis libros pero el mundo pequeño de los literatos de Chile me detestan. (Isabel Allende)
  31. ↑ Isabel Allende critica duramente a escritores chilenos y desata polémica, La Tercera. 9 February 2003
    Ella incurre en un gravísimo error, confundir éxito de ventas con calidad literaria. (Gonzalo Contreras)
  32. ↑ This much I know: Isabel Allende, writer, 65, San Francisco. This article appeared on p. 10 of the Comment & features section of the Observer on Sunday 13 July 2008. It was published on guardian.co.uk at 00.07 BST on Sunday 13 July 2008

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