Guest of the ilb 2006, 2007
Isabel Allende was born in 1942 in Lima, Peru into a diplomatic family and grew up in Santiago, La Paz and Beirut. She started working as a journalist in Santiago in 1960, with brief spells in Geneva and Brussels, and became active in the feminist movement. Among other jobs she was editor of the journal »Paula«, presented various television programmes and edited two film magazines. In the early seventies she wrote two children's books and four plays that were performed for the first time in Santiago. Following Pinochet's coup d'état in 1973, in which her uncle, the then head of government Salvador Allende, was killed, she went into exile in Venezuela. There she began to write her first novel, »La casa de los espíritus« (1982; Eng. »The House of Spirits«, 1985), which was to make Allende the most well-known South American female writer. A film version of the book, featuring a star cast, was made in 1993. The family saga tells the story of four generations, describing the social and ideological antagonisms within Chilean society up until the dictatorship. At its centre is a patriarch, whose domineering, tyrannical ways contrast with strong female personalities. Scarcely twenty years later Allende extended her debut novel into a trilogy with the saga's prehistory in the volumes »Hija de la fortuna« (1999; Eng. »Daughter of Fortune«, 1999) and »Retrato en Sepia« (2001; Eng. »Portrait in Sepia«, 2001). Some of the author's central themes include female participation in the psychic realm and the feminine ability to break through the cycle of violence and revenge with love and forgiveness. These motifs also appear in Allende's second novel, »De amor y de sombra« (1984; Eng. »Of Love and Shadow«, 1987), which was also made into a film. Here the subject is one of the first political crimes committed during the dictatorship to be later made public and brought to trial.
After her daughter died of a metabolic illness, Allende published her personal memoir »Paula« (1994; Eng. 1995). In 1996 she founded the Isabel Allende Foundation which campaigns above all for underprivileged women. A book trilogy for young adults – which, like her first novel, is written in the style of Magical Realism – and the also autobiographical story »Mi país inventado« (2003; Eng. »My Invented Country«, 2003) were followed by a novel in 2005 entitled »Zorro«, the first portrayal of the childhood and adolescence of the elegant hero. One year later »Inés del alma mía« (Eng. »Inés of My Soul«, 2006) was published, the life story of a historical figure absent from history books, who was the lover of Spanish conquistador Pedro de Valdivia. In 2007 her latest novel »La suma de los días« (t: The sum of the days), another autobiographically inspired work, was published.
Allende has been awarded numerous international prizes, among them the distinguished Chilean cultural prize Condecoración Gabriela Mistral. She has also received many honorary degrees from academic institutions and is a member of the Academia de la Lengua in Chile, the American Academy of Arts and Letters as well as being a Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France. The author lives with her second husband and their family in Sausalito near San Francisco.
© international literature festival berlin
Isabel Allende online: www.isabelallende.com
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
The House of Spirits
Knopf
New York, 1985
[T: Magda Bogin]
Of Love and Shadows
Knopf
New York, 1987
[T: Margaret Sayers Peden]
Eva Luna
Knopf
New York, 1988
[T: Margaret Sayers Peden]
The Stories of Eva Luna
Atheneum
New York, 1991
[T: Margaret Sayers Peden]
The Infinite Plan
Harper Collins
New York, 1993
[T: Margaret Sayers Peden]
Paula
Harper Collins
New York, 1995
[T: Margaret Sayers Peden]
Aphrodite
Harper Collins
New York, N.Y., 1998
[T: Margaret Sayers Peden]
Conversations with Isabel Allende
[edited by John Rodden]
University of Texas Press
Austin, 1999
[T: Virginia Invernizzi; John Rodden]
Daughter of Fortune
Harper Collins
New York, 1999
[T: Margaret Sayers Peden]
Portrait in Sepia
Harper Collins
New York, 2001
[T: Margaret Sayers Peden]
City of the Beasts
Harper Collins
New York, 2002
[T: Margaret Sayers Peden]
My Invented Country
Harper Collins
New York, 2003
[T: Margaret Sayers Peden]
Kingdom of the Golden Dragon
Harper Collins
New York, 2004
[T: Maragaret Sayers Peden]
Forest of the Pygmies
Harper Collins
New York, 2005
[T: Margaret Sayers Peden]
Zorro
Harper Collins
New York, 2005
[T: Margaret Sayers Peden]
Inés of My Soul
Harper Collins
New York, 2006
[T: Margaret Sayers Peden]
The Sum of Our Days
Harper Collins
New York, NY, 2008
[T: Margaret Sayers Peden]
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