Isabel Allende
Overview
Chilean people
Chilean people, or simply Chileans, are the native citizens and long-term immigrants of Chile. Chileans are mainly of Spanish and Amerindian descent, with small but significant traces of 19th and 20th century European immigrant origin...
writer with American citizenship. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the "magic realist
Magic realism
Magic realism or magical realism is an aesthetic style or genre of fiction in which magical elements blend with the real world. The story explains these magical elements as real occurrences, presented in a straightforward manner that places the "real" and the "fantastic" in the same stream of...
" tradition, is famous for novels such as The House of the Spirits
The House of the Spirits
The House of the Spirits is the debut novel by Isabel Allende. Initially, the novel was rejected by several Spanish-language publishers, but became an instant best seller when published in Barcelona in 1982. The novel was critically acclaimed around the world, and catapulted Allende to literary...
(La casa de los espíritus, 1982) and City of the Beasts
City of the Beasts
City of the Beasts is the first young adult novel by Chilean-American writer Isabel Allende, whose uncle is Salvador Allende, a former president of Chile. Published in 2002, the story is set in the Amazon rainforest. The novel was translated by Margaret Sayers Peden from Spanish to English...
(La ciudad de las bestias, 2002), which have been commercially successful. Allende has been called "the world's most widely read Spanish-language author". In 2004, Allende was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2010, she received Chile's National Literature Prize
Chilean National Prize for Literature
Chile's National Prize for Literature was created by Law No. 7,368 during the presidency of Juan Antonio Ríos on 8 November 1942. It consists of a lump-sum monetary prize and a life-time monthly stipend . It was originally awarded every year until the amendments introduced by Law No...
.
Allende's novels are often based upon her personal experience and pay homage to the lives of women, while weaving together elements of myth and realism.
