Isabel Allende
Isabel Allende
Isabel Allende; born 2 August 1942) is a Chilean-American writer. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the "magic realist" tradition, is famous for novels such as The House of the Spiritsand City of the Beasts, 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. President Barack Obama awarded her the...
NationalityChilean
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth2 August 1942
CityLima, Peru
CountryChile
All summer, I read fiction because you must read for the pleasure and beauty of it, and not only for research. I don't read thrillers, romance or mystery, and I don't read self-help books because I don't believe in shortcuts and loopholes.
fiction happens in the belly, it doesn't happen in the brain.
Fiction happens in the womb. It doesn't get processed in the mind until you do the editing.
I like historical fiction. I fell in love with New Orleans the first time I visited it. And I wanted to place a story in New Orleans.
you can tell the deepest truths with the lies of fiction
Memory is fiction. We select the brightest and the darkest, ignoring what we are ashamed of, and so embroider the broad tapestry of our lives.
For women the best aphrodisiacs are words. The G-spot is in the ears. He who looks for it below there is wasting his time.
one of those unforgettable stories that stays with you for years.
In the books I have written, I have created in my mind a universe. My kids say I have a village in my head and I live in that village, and it's true. When I start writing a book, characters from previous books reappear. All my emotions, my mind, my heart, my dreams, everything becomes connected with a new book, and nothing else really matters.
I write a letter to my mother every day, because in that letter, I write down my day. And if I don't write it down, then tomorrow I will forget it and it's gone.
I think that any writer who is commercial, who sells a lot of books, has to face criticism. Because the more hermetic and the more difficult your book is, supposedly it's better.
The fact that you own a gun and shoot to defend your life is a very American way of thinking.
It is in giving that I connect with others, with the world and with the divine.
I never thought that I would come to live in the United States. I was not pursuing the American dream.