© Latinas in History 2008 |
ALLENDE,
ISABEL (1942 )
Well-known
to readers in contemporary times, the popular novelist, Isabel Allende,
was actually born in Lima, Peru, but raised and
educated in Santiago de Chile. She was a second cousin of socialist Chilean
President Salvador Allende Gossens (19081973). The family
returned to Chile in 1945 and traveled in diplomatic circles, and later,
Allende attended schools in Bolivia and Beirut. Subsequently she, worked
as a bilingual secretary at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO). She also wrote for Paula magazine
and the humorous column Los impertinentes. She contributed
to the childrens magazine Mampato and published two stories
for children. In addition, Allende worked for television channels 13 and
7 in Santiago, and in 1975 Allende and her family
were exiled to Venezuela, when the Salvador Allende government was overthrown.
In Venezuela, she wrote for the newspaper El Nacional and worked
as an administrator for Marroco College. In 1981, when her grandfather
was about to die, Allende began to write him a letter that later became
the manuscript for her first novel The House of the Spirits which
eventually segued into a prolific writing career. After
fifteen years of exile Allende moved to the United States but returned
to Chile to receive the prestigious Gabriela Mistral Award. With historical
novels like Daughter of Fortune and Portrait in Sepia,
Allende established her Latina credentials, and remains a productive author
and a best-selling novelist.
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