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
That is the best part of writing: finding the hidden treasures, giving sparkle to worn out events, invigorating the tired soul with imagination, creating some kind of truth with many lies.
The first lie of fiction is that the author gives some order to the chaos of life: chronological order, or whatever order the author chooses.
As I travel through life, I gather experiences that lie imprinted on the deepest strata of memory, and there they ferment, are transformed, and sometimes rise to the surface and sprout like strange plants from other worlds. What is the fertile humus of the subconscious composed of? Why are certain images converted into recurrent themes in nightmares or writing?
There's basically an element of fiction in everything you remember. Imagination and memory are almost the same brain processes. When I write fiction, I know that I'm using a bunch of lies that I've made up to create some form of truth. When I write a memoir, I'm using true elements to create something that will always be somehow fictionalized.
It is common knowledge that no man that women flock to boasts of his conquests. Those who do, lie.
That was a good time in my life, in spite of having the sensation of floating on a cloud, surrounded by both lies and things left unspoken. Occasionally I thought I glimpsed the truth, but soon found myself once again lost in a forest of ambiguities.
you can tell the deepest truths with the lies of fiction
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.