Isabel Allende

[Allende] writes with surpassing compassion and insight. Her place as an icon of world literature was secured long ago. She will be celebrated, by readers and writers alike, for generations to come. Khaled Hosseini

Isabel Allende’s novels and memoirs have established her as one of the most respected Latin American writers—one of the most respected writers, period—the world has ever known. A native of Chile, Allende was forced into exile following the assassination of her uncle, President Salvador Allende. Since then, she has written over 24 books, including The House of the Spirits, Eva Luna, Daughter of Fortune (an Oprah pick), Ines of My Soul, Island Beneath the Sea, Maya’s Notebook, The Japanese Lover, Ripper, and In the Midst of Winter. Her novel, A Long Petal of the Sea, follows two young people as they flee the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War in search of a place to call home. Her latest novel, Violeta, tells the epic story of a woman bearing witness to the greatest upheavals of the twentieth century. Allende’s non-fiction books include the memoirs Paula and The Sum of Our Days, as well as her most recently published book The Soul of a Woman: a passionate and inspiring meditation on Allende’s feminist roots. Chosen as one of Amazon’s best non-fiction books of the year, The Soul of a Woman is a work that Allende hopes will “light the torches of our daughters and granddaughters with mine.” Her incredible life and career is now dramatized in Isabel, a miniseries on HBO that reminds viewers that “the path to greatness is never assured and rarely foreseen” (Roger Egbert).

Allende is the founder of the Isabel Allende Foundation, which promotes and preserves the fundamental rights of women and children to be empowered and protected. She was recently awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the U.S., as well as PEN Center USA’s Lifetime Achievement Award. She also received the Chilean National Prize for Literature in 2010 and in 2014.