Isabel Allende, considered one of the first internationally acclaimed female Latin American novelists, authored the literary phenomena “The House of Spirits”, “The Soul of Women”, “Daughter of Fortune” and many others. We had the opportunity to speak remotely about her life, career and ideas over the break.
With hair dyed a snowy white, immaculately placed red lipstick and a chunky necklace, the legendary Chilean author and activist looks like she could belong anywhere, from Wall Street to a fashion magazine. Less than a year after her last novel, “The Wind Knows My Name”, was published, Allende already has a newly completed manuscript and is ready for more, cementing herself as one of the most successful authors of the century.
“I just finished another book yesterday,” she exclaimed, lifting a thick stack of loose white papers. Now, Allende is ready for a new story; her superstition allows her to begin a book only on January 8th. She laughs in anticipation, “I mean I’m scared.”
On that day, she sits at her desk and ruminates over ideas, seeing which one takes. “It’s not about just choosing a fashionable subject. I won’t be able to write about Taylor Swift just because she’s famous. It has to touch me in a way that inspires me enough,” Allende explains.
Part tragedy, part comedy, Allende has lived a truly extraordinary life. From her exile to Venezuela to the various dramas of her family, she turns to her reality to create lively, imaginative books filled with the essence of the human experience: love, death, family and drama.
“I cannot sing in the shower. And I cannot tell a joke. But I have a sense of how the story goes …and I think that you cannot teach,” Allende says of her writing.
Allende’s grandmother conducted seances to call spirits and experimented with telepathy, a fact that she recounts with total solemnity. “In a way, she gave me the idea, when I was very, very young, that the world is a very mysterious place. That anything can happen. There are many dimensions of reality, that you can live in this reality, but your mind and your heart can be somewhere else.”
Inspired by her grandparents, Allende’s first novel, “The House of the Spirits”, weaves reality and magic to create a literary masterpiece, both the story of a remarkable family and a chronicle of Chile’s political past. Like in many of Allende’s books, she bases the characters on her family members and the political turmoil of her own experiences.
Allende fled Chile in 1973 after Augustus Pinochet violently overthrew Allende’s uncle, Salvador Allende, in a military coup. She discovered her name was on the military blacklist and received death threats, leading her to become a political refugee.
Henry Kissinger, who died in late November, had a significant role in the conflict. On Kissinger, she is unequivocal. “I am very sorry he never had to pay for his war crimes. Kissinger was a war criminal, in my opinion,” she states. “He was the mastermind behind the United State’s intervention in many countries. I know more about Latin America, but not only in Latin America but also in Africa and other places where democracies were replaced by dictatorships that would bend to the will of the United States.”
Allende has resided in the United States for several decades, now writing from her home in California. She praises the multicultural aspect of America: “Here, everybody has a place. And I like diversity because I think it makes the country very strong. It brings in so many influences.”
However, Allende critiques what she sees as a culture of violence, which fills the media. “We call it action, but action is usually violence…it’s explosions and bullets and dead people and torture. And we seem to be addicted to that,” she says, her voice tinted with sorrow.
Allende has witnessed the trauma of military violence in Chile. Violence, like all other issues in her books, is treated with care, never occurring facetiously but discussed seriously and openly.
Today, freedom of speech is a contentious issue, with the imposition of book bans and the escalation of political tensions intensifying the debate. Multiple schools have banned Allende’s first novel, “The House of the Spirits,” and she does not have the power to stop them.
“You know it takes one parent to ban a book,” she says, sighing in frustration. However, Allende believes in the power of educators. “[One] teacher… went all the way to the board of education, and had the ban removed and the book was back in the library. Just as it takes one parent to ban it, it can take one teacher to put it back.”
Allende believes in personal freedom. She consistently speaks and writes freely, not shying away from highly politicized topics such as violence, class, war, sexual assault and feminism. However, for Allende, morals and free speech can be congruous. “I am very careful when I write, not to destroy another person with a comment or a story that doesn’t belong to me,” she states.
Not just a writer, Allende is an outspoken feminist, which she recounts in “The Soul of Women,” a direct tribute to feminism. She created the Isabel Allende Foundation in honor of her late daughter, Paula, which advocates and supports women by fighting for reproductive rights, economic empowerment and freedom from violence. Through her writing and platform, Allende worked to erode patriarchal structures, a process every generation has taken part in. “We are all adding little pieces until the whole thing collapses,” Allende said proudly.
Policy changes hold great importance to Allende, who believes, “You might help a person on the field, the victim, but if you don’t change the laws, nothing changes.”
At 82, Allende is not slowing down, still fighting as an activist and evolving as a storyteller while maintaining the subtle magic of her early writing. She credits her grandchildren for teaching her about pronouns and LGBTQ issues and always trying to update her views as society grows and changes.
No matter the topic, Allende reminds herself of her grandmother’s lesson: “Nothing is simple, nothing is straightforward, nothing is black and white. Things are complicated, complex and layered.”
