Isabel Allende

From Hispanopedia
For the Chilean politician, see Isabel Allende Bussi.
For other uses, see Isabel Allende (disambiguation).
Isabel Allende
Isabel Allende in October 2015.
Born
Isabel Angélica Allende Llona

(1942-08-02) August 2, 1942 (age 84)
Lima, Peru
Spouse(s)
Miguel Frías
​
​
(m. 1962; div. 1987)​
[1]
Willie Gordon
​
​
(m. 1988; div. 2015)​
ChildrenPaula (1963–1992)
Nicolás (1967)
Parent(s)Tomás Allende Pesce
Francisca Llona Barros
Writing career
LanguageSpanish
Notable awards
Signature

Isabel Angélica Allende Llona (Lima, Peru; August 2, 1942)[4] is a Chilean writer with American citizenship, of Spanish-Portuguese descent and born in Peru. Since 2004 she has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.[5] She received her country's National Prize for Literature in 2010.

A best-selling author, total sales of her books have reached 72 million copies and her works have been translated into 42 languages.[6] She is considered the most widely read living writer in the Spanish language.[7]

Biography

Family

She is the daughter of the diplomat Tomás Allende Pesce, first cousin of Salvador Allende, President of Chile from 1970 to 1973 (in some publications they are mistakenly described as brothers),[8][9] and of Francisca Llona Barros.[8] She was born in Lima while her father was serving as secretary of the Chilean embassy in Peru, and she is the eldest of the couple's three children (her younger brothers are Juan and Francisco).[8][10] Isabel Allende is of Spanish (Basque) descent on her father's side and of Portuguese and Spanish (Basque and Castilian) descent on her mother's side.[10]

Her parents separated in 1945, and her mother returned with Isabel and her two brothers to Chile, where she lived from 1946 to 1953. That year her mother married the diplomat Ramón Huidobro Domínguez – "Uncle Ramón" –,[11] who between 1953 and 1958 was posted to Bolivia, where Isabel attended an American school in La Paz, and to Lebanon, where she studied at a private English school.

Marriages and children

On returning to Chile in 1959 she met Miguel Frías again, whom she married four years later. The couple had two children: Paula (1963–1992) and Nicolás (1967), both born in Santiago.

Because of the coup d'état of September 11, 1973 against Salvador Allende and the advent of the dictatorship, they fled Chile in 1975. Allende and her family went into exile in Venezuela, where they lived until 1988.

The constant travel she undertook to promote her books brought her marriage to Frías to an end. Divorced from her husband, she married the lawyer Willie Gordon on July 7, 1988, in San Francisco. In 2015, after 27 years, they separated.[6] Gordon died on March 17, 2019, at the age of 82.[12][13] Since 1988 she has lived in the United States, and she has been a citizen of that country since 2003.

Public life

From 1959 to 1965 she worked at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Santiago. During the following years, she spent long periods in Europe, living mainly in Brussels and Switzerland.

From 1967 she took part in the editorial staff of the magazine Paula, while publishing a large number of articles on various subjects. Later, she contributed to the children's magazine Mampato, of which she was acting editor between 1973 and 1974, and she published two children's stories (La abuela Panchita and Lauchas y lauchones, ratas y ratones) and a collection of articles titled Civilice a su troglodita. She also worked at two Chilean television channels.

In the early 1970s she ventured into playwriting. Her play El embajador premiered in 1971, and in 1973 La balada del medio pelo and Yo soy la Tránsito Soto premiered. Finally, shortly before she left the country, Los siete espejos premiered.[14]

Allende remained in Venezuela for thirteen years, and there she worked at the newspaper El Nacional of Caracas and at a secondary school until 1982, when she published La casa de los espíritus. This first novel of hers, and her best known, grew out of a letter she had begun writing to her grandfather in 1981, when he was 99 years old and on the point of death. This work was adapted for the cinema and premiered in Munich in October 1993, produced by Bernd Eichinger and directed by Billie August. In addition, more than 51 million copies were sold and the work was translated into more than 27 languages.[15] Her second novel, De amor y de sombra (1984), also became another great success and was likewise brought to the big screen in 1994 by the Venezuelan filmmaker Betty Kaplan.[16] In both novels she addresses the subject of the dictatorship, drawing on the author's own experiences.

In 1988 she traveled to Chile to vote in the October plebiscite, which Pinochet lost and which led, the following year, to elections won by the opposition, grouped in the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia. In 1990, with the return of democracy in Chile, she was awarded the Gabriela Mistral Order of Educational and Cultural Merit by President Patricio Aylwin.

At the age of 28, her daughter Paula died in 1992 from porphyria, which left her in a coma in a clinic in Madrid. The painful experience drove her to write Paula, an autobiographical epistolary book published in 1994 in which she recounts her childhood and youth up to the time of exile. Two years later, she founded The Isabel Allende Foundation in tribute to her daughter, who had worked as a volunteer in marginalized communities (in Venezuela and Spain) as an educator and psychologist.[17]

Since 1988 she has lived in San Rafael (California),[18] but she normally works in a house in Sausalito, a few kilometers to the south, where she has written many of her novels.[6] She has been honored by the American Academy of Arts and Letters of the United States, and her motto is "Let your imagination fly and write what is necessary." In May 2007, she was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Trento (Italy) in "lingue e letterature moderne euroamericane".

In September 2010, she was awarded the Chilean National Prize for Literature[19] for "the excellence and contribution of her work to literature, which has attracted attention in Chile and abroad, has also been recognized by multiple distinctions, and has revalued the role of the reader." The vote, as was to be expected given the controversy that had preceded it,[20] was not unanimous (three votes to two).[21] Isabel Allende became the fourth woman to receive this award, preceded by Gabriela Mistral (1951), Marta Brunet (1961) and Marcela Paz (1982).[19]

The following year, she received the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award for her qualities as a magical storyteller and her talent for "bewitching" the public, succeeding another woman, the British J.K. Rowling, who won the first edition of this award, presented since 2010 in Odense, birthplace of the famous Danish writer.[22]

Style and themes

On the literary level, she admits that when she begins to write she creates a place, a period and the characters, and the story unfolds on its own; that is, she does not have an initial plan with all the actions. Several of her books have grown out of letters or personal reflections. Examples of this are La casa de los espíritus and Paula, which she wrote as a tribute to her daughter. Although many scholars classify the work in the autobiographical genre, she herself indicates that it is more of a "memoir," because it is not a biography properly speaking but a collection of memories closer to fiction than to reality, although the latter inspired it.

Humor is an integral part of her writing, whether journalistic or literary. She admits that she became accustomed to writing this way when she was a journalist, and now, thanks to that, she can see the story "behind" each matter, an alternative vision.

La ciudad de las bestias represents her attempt to reach a young readership. She decided to write it after two books involving a great deal of historical research. This new book would give her a rest, and in it she could express her imagination more freely, since historical fiction always requires great care to keep to the facts as they occurred.

When she was a journalist, other people were her story; she felt entitled to ring a house's doorbell, go inside and ask questions, or stop a stranger in the middle of the street and question him about personal matters, such as his thoughts.

In addition to works of an autobiographical nature, Allende has written historical novels, such as Inés del alma mía —based on the life of Inés de Suárez, the first Spanish woman to arrive in Chile— or La isla bajo el mar, which narrates the life of a slave named Zarité in Saint-Domingue, today's Haiti, in the late 18th century.

Her work has been classified in the literary movement known as the Post-Boom, although some scholars prefer the term novísima literatura. This movement is characterized by a return to realism. It normally refers to prose that is simpler to read, since the concern with creating new ways of writing (meta-literature) is lost, along with an emphasis on history and local culture, among other things.

In 2012 she decided to venture into the field of the crime novel —a genre cultivated since 2006 by her ex-husband, William C. Gordon—[23] and wrote El juego de Ripper, which she delivered in December of that year to her agent Carmen Balcells.[24] The work was published in early 2014. According to Allende, it was Balcells who proposed that she write a detective novel with Gordon, but it did not work out: "It was impossible. We have different ways of working, but I kept the story," the author explained, adding that her husband "helped with the structure of the book."[25]

Criticism

Although her sales successes are overwhelming, there are critics and writers who have been relentless toward her, considering her a writer of subliterature, of merely commercial literature or, at best, a lesser copy of Gabriel García Márquez. The writer herself has acknowledged that Cien años de soledad is the book that has most influenced her work.[26]

The American critic Harold Bloom declared that "Isabel Allende is a very bad writer and only reflects a particular period."[27] The Mexican Elena Poniatowska lumped her together with Ángeles Mastretta and Laura Esquivel and said that the three "enter literature as commercial phenomena and write women's literature."[28] The Argentine Angélica Gorodischer pointed out that Allende's novels only feed outdated female stereotypes and contribute nothing at the level of literature or gender.[29] Finally, her compatriot Roberto Bolaño said: "She seems to me a bad writer, plain and simple, and calling her a writer is giving her too much credit. I don't even think Isabel Allende is a writer; she is a 'scribbler'."[30]

On the paradox between her success and the opinions of many writers and experts, Camilo Marks wrote in 2011: "Basically, there are two ways of reading Isabel Allende. The first consists of scrutinizing the flaws in her books, exposing them in lavish detail and sending her to the depths of hell with an unappealable, self-satisfied, well-founded condemnatory verdict. The second starts from the premise that it is legitimate to have a good time reading her narratives, since they are entertaining, it is not hard to be caught up in them, and they have merits that attract the mass public or more demanding readers. Between both extremes it seems difficult to find a middle ground: there are those who will always hate her, while others will be fascinated by each new title of hers."[31]

Adaptations of her works

In addition to the film adaptations already mentioned above —La casa de los espíritus and De amor y de sombras—, some of her works have been brought to the stage (her first novel has 10 dramatic versions) and to radio, or have been turned into musicals (El Zorro), operas and ballets (Una venganza).[32][25]

The same story Una venganza, written in 1987 and part of the collection Cuentos de Eva Luna, has been reborn as an opera. The librettist Richard Sparks and the composer Lee Holdridge completed the work in 2012.[32] It premiered under the title Dulce Rosa at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica[33] on May 17, 2013, under the musical direction of Plácido Domingo and with the Uruguayan soprano María Antúnez and the Mexican baritone Alfredo Daza in the leading roles.[25]

Between 2015 and 2019, Televisión Española and Chilevisión brought Inés del alma mía, Allende's successful novel, to television.[34] The series will tell, over eight episodes, the story of Inés Suárez, played by the Spanish actress Elena Rivera.[35]

The Chilean television channel Mega and Amazon Prime Video broadcast in 2021 the three-episode biographical miniseries Isabel, based on her novel Paula, starring Daniela Ramírez and Nestor Cantillana.[36][37]

Works

Beginning with her first novel, all her works have been published in Spanish by the publishers Plaza & Janés and Sudamericana, belonging to the Penguin Random House group.

Theater

  • El embajador (premiered in Santiago in 1971)[14]
  • La balada del medio pelo (premiered in Santiago under the direction of Víctor Bogado, El Túnel theater, 1973)[40]
  • Yo soy la Tránsito Soto (premiered in Santiago in 1973)[14]
  • Los siete espejos (premiered in Santiago in 1975)[14]

Filmography

Awards and honors

  • 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).
  • Grand Prix de la Radio Télévision Belge (Point de Mire, 1985).
  • Best Novel (Mexico, 1985).
  • Bellas Artes Prize for Narrative Colima for Published Work (Mexico, 1985).
  • Quality Paperback Book Club New Voice (United States; nominated in 1986).
  • Author of the Year (Germany, 1986).
  • XV Premio Internazionale I Migliori Dell'Anno (Italy, 1987).
  • Premio Mulheres for Best Foreign Novel (Portugal, 1987).
  • Nomination for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (United States, 1987).
  • Library Journal's Best Book (United States, 1988).
  • Before Columbus Foundation Award (United States, 1988).
  • Gabriela Mistral Order of Educational and Cultural Merit (Chile, 1990)
  • XLI Bancarella Literary Prize (Italy, 1993).
  • Independent Foreign Fiction Award (England, June–July 1993).
  • Brandeis University Major Book Collection Award (United States, 1993).
  • Feminist of the Year Award, The Feminist; Majority Foundation (United States, 1994).
  • Critics' Choice (United States, 1996).
  • Books to Remember, American Library Assoc. (United States, 1996).
  • Hispanic Heritage Award for Literature (United States, 1996).
  • Malaparte Amici di Capri (Italy, 1998).
  • Donna Citta Di Roma (Italy, 1998).
  • Dorothy and Lillian Gish Award (United States, 1998).
  • Sara Lee Foundation (United States, 1998).
  • José Donoso Ibero-American Prize for Letters, University of Talca (Chile, 2003).
  • Honoris Causa Award, Università di Trento in "lingue e letteratura moderne euroamericane" (Trento, Italy, 2007).
  • Chilean National Prize for Literature (2010).[41]
  • Ciudad de Alcalá Prize for Arts and Letters (Alcalá de Henares, Spain, 2011).
  • Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award (Odense, Denmark, 2012).
  • Carl Sandburg Award (Chicago Public Library, United States, 2013).
  • Libro de Oro Prize 2014 (Cámara Uruguaya del Libro) for El juego de Ripper.[42]
  • Medal of Freedom (United States, 2014)
  • Honorary doctorate from the Universidad de Santiago de Chile (2015)
  • National Book Award: National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters (United States of America, 2018)[43]
  • Barcino International Historical Novel Prize 2019, awarded by the Barcelona City Council.[44]
  • Liber Prize 2020, awarded by the Federation of Publishers' Guilds of Spain (FGEE).[45]

References

  1. ↑ http://archivo.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/881995.html
  2. ↑ Interview with Isabel Allende, Big Think, June 16, 2010; video and text; accessed September 22, 2012 (in English)
  3. ↑ León, Constanza (April 28, 2012). "Isabel Allende habla por primera vez de su doloroso año sabático: "Casi me mató"" (in español). La Segunda. Retrieved March 4, 2016.
  4. ↑ Résumé (in English) Archived 2012-01-06 at the Wayback Machine
  5. ↑ List of members on the Academy's website Archived 2016-06-24 at the Wayback Machine; in English, accessed July 24, 20112
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Ana Tagarro. Isabel Allende: "¡Las veces que he tenido amante ha sido rebueno!" Archived 2015-05-24 at the Wayback Machine, XL Semanal magazine, May 24, 2015; accessed the same day
  7. ↑ Agencia EFE (October 2009). "Isabel Allende Named to Council of Cervantes Institute". Latin American Herald Tribune. Retrieved July 24, 2011. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Pilleux Cepeda, Mauricio (April 13, 2013). "Familia Allende" (in español). www.genealog.cl. Retrieved July 28, 2013.
  9. ↑ "Isabel Allende. Página oficial. Cronología" (in español). Archived from the original on June 13, 2011. Retrieved June 3, 2011.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Biography of Isabel Allende on the Instituto Lux website Archived 2011-03-17 at the Wayback Machine Accessed July 24, 2012.
  11. ↑ Munizaga, Rodrigo (July 16, 2016). "La memoria del embajador". El Mercurio (in español). Retrieved January 19, 2019.
  12. ↑ "William C. Gordon (1937-2019)". Agencia Literaria Carmen Balcells (in español). Retrieved 2021-06-08.
  13. ↑ García, Javier (2019-04-03). "Muere William C. Gordon, segundo marido y fuente literaria de Isabel Allende". La Tercera (in español). Retrieved 2021-06-08.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 Günther Wessel. Los Allende. Con ardiente paciencia por un mundo mejor, Chronological table (pp. 206-208), Editorial Tébar, Madrid, 2004.
  15. ↑ "Isabel Allende" (in español).
  16. ↑ Entry for De amor y de sombras on IMDb Archived 2013-01-15 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed July 24, 2012.
  17. ↑ Foundation website. Accessed July 24, 2012.
  18. ↑ Escritora Isabel Allende es ahora estadounidense.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 «Isabel Allende, Premio Nacional de Literatura en Chile.» September 2, 2010. Clarín. Accessed July 24, 2012.
  20. ↑ Castillo, Rodrigo R. «Isabel Allende gana polémico Premio Nacional de Literatura.» September 3, 2010. Las Últimas Noticias. Accessed July 24, 2012.
  21. ↑ Careaga, Roberto and Andrés Gómez. «Isabel Allende: "Este es el mayor premio que he recibido en mi vida".» September 3, 2010. La Tercera. Accessed July 24, 2012
  22. ↑ «Isabel Allende recibe el premio Hans Christian Andersen de literatura.» June 28, 2011. ABC. Accessed July 24, 2012.
  23. ↑ Alicia Rinaldi. William C. Gordon el escritor al lado de Isabel Allende, El Mercurio, December 18, 2012; accessed May 14, 2013
  24. ↑ .Javier García. Isabel Allende muestra nuevas armas: debuta en la novela policial, La Tercera, December 16, 2012. Accessed December 17, 2012.
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 25.2 Javier García. Isabel Allende y su novela policial: "Tiene todas las claves de un thriller", La Tercera, May 25, 2013. Accessed May 29, 2013.
  26. ↑ Allende, Isabel (January 24, 2020). "Isabel Allende: 'The Female Eunuch confirmed I was not crazy'". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved January 24, 2020.
  27. ↑ "Los éxitos y las críticas". Clarín (in español). Argentina. February 9, 2003. Retrieved June 23, 2018.
  28. ↑ "Los éxitos y las críticas". Clarín (in español). February 9, 2003. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  29. ↑ "Los éxitos y las críticas". Clarín (in español). February 9, 2003. Retrieved June 27, 2018.
  30. ↑ Gómez B., Andrés (May 19, 2002). "Isabel Allende es mala escritora". La Tercera (in español). Santiago. p. 49. Retrieved June 23, 2018.
  31. ↑ Camilo Marks. Necesidad de melodrama, Revista de Libros of El Mercurio, June 26, 2011. Accessed July 24, 2012.
  32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 Maureen Lennon Zaninovic. Cuento de Isabel Allende será llevado a la ópera por Plácido Domingo, Artes y Letras of El Mercurio, 22.07.2012, Accessed July 24, 2012.
  33. ↑ Javier García. En Los Angeles estrenan ópera sobre relato de Isabel Allende, La Tercera, 18.05.2013. Accessed May 29, 2013.
  34. ↑ RTVE, Chilevisión y Boomerang TV inician el rodaje de 'Inés del alma mía'
  35. ↑ "Elena Rivera, ante su cambio total en 'Ines del alma mía', de Isabel Allende". HOLA (in español). 2019-09-18. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  36. ↑ Cooperativa.cl. "Daniela Ramírez protagonizará serie biográfica sobre Isabel Allende". Cooperativa.cl (in español). Retrieved January 17, 2020.
  37. ↑ "Isabel Allende se conmueve ante la serie de Prime Video sobre su vida". Los Angeles Times (in español). 2021-06-05. Retrieved 2021-06-06.
  38. ↑ "Más allá del invierno" (in español). 2017. Retrieved 2018. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
  39. ↑ ""Mujeres del alma mía", el nuevo libro sobre feminismo de Isabel Allende". EFEMINISTA (in español). 2020-04-24. Retrieved 2020-10-17.
  40. ↑ Record of the program of La balada del medio pelo, SISIB, University of Chile
  41. ↑ Nacional, Biblioteca del Congreso. "Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional | Ley Chile". www.bcn.cl/leychile (in español). Retrieved October 19, 2020.
  42. ↑ CUL (December 11, 2014). "Premios Ligros de Oro y Legión del Libro" (in español). Retrieved December 11, 2014.
  43. ↑ "Lifetime-Achievement-Award-for Distinguished-Contribution-to-American+Letters". Retrieved November 20, 2018.
  44. ↑ "La chilena Isabel Allende gana el Premio de Novela Histórica Barcino". La Vanguardia (in español). May 23, 2019. Retrieved May 23, 2019.
  45. ↑ "Editores españoles destacan obra de Isabel Allende con el Premio Liber 2020". BioBioChile - La Red de Prensa Más Grande de Chile (in español). September 29, 2020. Retrieved September 29, 2020.
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