Allende biography
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Isabel Allende
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Author
(b. )
California Connection
Has lived in the San Francisco Bay Area since ; many of her books are set in California
Achievements
Biography current as of induction in
Isabel Allende received worldwide acclaim when her bestselling first novel, The House of the Spirits, was published in In addition to launching her career as a renowned author, the book, which grew out of a farewell letter to her dying grandfather, established her as a feminist force in Latin America’s male-dominated literary world.
She since has written 20 more works, including Of Love and Shadows, Eva Luna, Daughter of Fortune and her latest, The Japanese Lover. Allende’s books, all written in her native Spanish, have been translated into more than 35 languages and have sold over 67 million copies.
Allende’s works are informed bygd her feminist convictions, her commitment to social justice, and the harsh political realit
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Isabel Allende
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Who Is Isabel Allende?
Isabel Allende is a Chilean journalist and author born on August 2, , in Lima, Peru. Her best-known works include the novels The House of the Spirits and City of the Beasts. She has written over 20 books that have been translated into more than 35 languages and sold more than 67 million copies.
Early Life
Isabel Allende was born on August 2, , in Lima, Peru, to Tomás and Francisca Allende. She is the goddaughter of Salvador Allende, the first socialist president of Chile who was her father's cousin. Her father, a diplomat, deserted the family when Allende was just two. She, her siblings and mother then moved in with her grandfather in Chile. Allende remembers herself as a rebellious child during those years living with her grandfather. “We lived in an affluent house – with no money," she said in an interview with The Telegraph. "My grandfather would pay for what was necessary but my mother did not even have the cash
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Isabel Allende recalls it as the day when Santiago went silent. On the morning of September 11, , Salvador Allende rushed to La Moneda, the Presidential palace, after learning of an unfolding military uprising. Tanks laid siege to La Moneda, a neoclassical building from the early eighteen-hundreds, as the armed forces called on President Allende to resign. Vowing to defend the Constitution, he declared, in a radio address, that he would not step down: “Social processes can be arrested by neither crime nor force.” Minutes before noon, military planes bombed La Moneda, setting its north wing on fire and blanketing the rest in smoke. When troops later stormed in, they found the President’s body in one of the palace’s main halls, his hand resting near a rifle. By day’s end, Augusto Pinochet had taken power, marking the start of his seventeen-year rule. “That distant Tuesday in , my life was split in two,” Isabel Allende wrote decades later. “Nothing was ever again the same: I lost my co