Theme: Isabel Allende Contents

1.2.Isabel Allende career.
Beginning in 1967, Allende was on the editorial staff of Paula magazine and the children's magazine Mampato [es] from 1969 to 1974, where she later became the editor.

She published two children's stories, "La Abuela Panchita" and "Lauchas y Lauchones", as well as a collection of articles, Civilice a Su Troglodita. She also worked in Chilean television production for channels 7 and 13 from 1970 to 1974.As a journalist, she once sought an interview with poet Pablo Neruda. Neruda agreed to the interview, and he told her that she had too much imagination to be a journalist and should be a novelist instead.He also advised her to compile her satirical columns in book form.W4 She did so, and this became her first published book. In 1973, Allende's play El Embajador played in Santiago a few months before she was forced to flee the country due to the coup.

During her time in Venezuela, Allende was a freelance journalist for El Nacional in Caracas from 1976 to 1983 and an administrator of the Marrocco School in Caracas from 1979 to 1983.
In 1981, while in Caracas, Allende received a phone call informing her that her 99-year-old grandfather was near death, and she sat down to write him a letter, hoping to thereby "keep him alive, at least in spirit." The letter evolved into a book, The House of the Spirits (1982); this work intended to exorcise the ghosts of the Pinochet dictatorship. The book was rejected by numerous Latin American publishers, but eventually published in Buenos Aires. The book soon ran to more than two dozen editions in Spanish and was translated into a score of languages. Allende was compared to Gabriel García Márquez as an author in the style known as magical realism.
Although Allende is often cited as a practitioner of magical realism, her works also display elements of post-Boom literature. Allende also holds to a very strict writing routine.[34] She writes on a computer, working Monday to Saturday, 09:00 to 19:00 "I always start on 8 January", Allende stated; "a tradition she began in 1981 with the letter she wrote to her dying grandfather that would become The House of the Spirits.Allende's book Paula (1995) is a memoir of her childhood in Santiago and the years she spent in exile. It is written as an anguished letter to her daughter. In 1991, an error in Paula's medication resulted in severe brain damage, leaving her in a persistent vegetative state.Allende spent months at Paula's bedside before learning that a hospital mishap had caused the brain damage. Allende had Paula moved to a hospital in California where she died on 6 December 1992.
Allende's novels have been translated into more than 40 languages and sold about 74 million copies.Her 2008 book, The Sum of Our Days, is a memoir. It focuses on her life with her family, which includes her grown son, Nicolás; second husband, William Gordon; and several grandchildren.[37] A novel set in New Orleans, Island Beneath the Sea, was published in 2010. In 2011 came El cuaderno de Maya (Maya's Notebook), in which the setting alternates between Berkeley, California, and Chiloé in Chile, as well as Las Vegas, Nevada.
Latino Leaders Magazine called her a "literary legend" in a 2007 article naming her the third most influential Latino leader in the world.
Her work has drawn some negative criticism. In an article published in Entre paréntesis, Roberto Bolaño called Allende's literature anemic, comparing it to "a person on his deathbed," and later called her "a writing machine, not a writer".Literary critic Harold Bloom said that Allende only "reflects a determinate period, and that afterwards everybody will have forgotten her".Novelist Gonzalo Contreras said that "she commits a grave error, to confuse commercial success with literary quality".Allende said to El Clarín that she recognizes that she has not always received good reviews in Chile, stating that Chilean intellectuals "detest" her. However, she disagrees with these assessments:
The fact people think that when you sell a lot of books you are not a serious writer is a great insult to the readership. I get a little angry when people try to say such a thing. There was a review of my last book in one American paper by a professor of Latin American studies and he attacked me personally for the sole reason that I sold a lot of books. That is unforgivable.
It has been said that "Allende's impact on Latin American and world literature cannot be overestimated."The Los Angeles Times called Allende "a genius",and she has received many international awards, including the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize,granted to writers "who have contributed to the beauty of the world".
Awards

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  Novel of the Year (Chile, 1983)
  
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  Panorama Literario (Chile, 1983)
  
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  Author of the Year (Germany, 1984)
  
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  Book of the Year (Germany, 1984)
  
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  Grand Prix d'Evasion (France, 1984)
  
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  Grand Prix de la Radio Télévision Belge (Point de Mire, 1985)
  
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  Best Novel (Mexico, 1985)
  
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  Colima Literary Prize (Mexico, 1986)
  
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  Quality Paperback Book Club New Voice (United States; 1986 nominee)
  
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  Author of the Year (Germany, 1986)
  
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  XV Premio Internazionale I Migliori Dell'Anno (Italy, 1987)
  
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  Premio Mulheres a la Mejor Novela Extranjera (Portugal, 1987)
  
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  Los Angeles Times Book Prize nominee (United States, 1987)
  
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  Library Journal's Best Book (United States, 1988)
  
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  Before Columbus Foundation Award (United States, 1989)
  
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  Orden al Mérito Docente y Cultural Gabriela Mistral (Chile, 1990)
  
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  XLI Bancarella Literary Prize (Italy, 1993)
  
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  Independent Foreign Fiction Award (England, June–July 1993)
  
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  Brandeis University Major Book Collection Award (United States, 1993)
  
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  Feminist of the Year Award, The Feminist; Majority Foundation (United States, 1994)
  
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  Chevalier des Artes et des Lettres distinction (France, 1994)
  
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  Critics' Choice (United States, 1996)
  
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  Books to Remember, American Library Assoc. (United States, 1996)
  
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  Hispanic Heritage Award in Literature (United States, 1996).
  
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  Malaparte Amici di Capri (Italy, 1998)
  
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  Donna Citta Di Roma (Italy, 1998)
  
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  Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize (United States, 1998)
  
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  Sara Lee Foundation (United States, 1998)
  
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  Premio Iberoamericano de Letras José Donoso, University of Talca (Chile, 2003)
  
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  Premio Honoris Causa, Università di Trento en "lingue e letteratura moderne euroamericane" (Trento, Italy, May 2007)
  
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  Chilean National Prize for Literature (Chile, 2010)
  
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  Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction (USA, 2010)
  
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  Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award (Denmark, 2012)
  
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  Presidential Medal of Freedom (United States, 2014)
  
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  Anisfield-Wolf Book Award: Lifetime Achievement (United States, 2017)[49]
  
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  BBC 100 Women (United Kingdom, 2018)
  
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  National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters (United States, 2018)
  
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  Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.) from Whittier College.
  

Fiction

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  The House of the Spirits (1982) La casa de los espíritus
  
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  The Porcelain Fat Lady (1984) La gorda de porcelana
  
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  Of Love and Shadows (1985) De amor y de sombra
  
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  Eva Luna (1987) Eva Luna
  
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  Two Words (1989) Dos Palabras
  
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  The Stories of Eva Luna (1989) Cuentos de Eva Luna
  
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  The Infinite Plan (1991) El plan infinito
  
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  Daughter of Fortune (1999) Hija de la fortuna
  
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  Portrait in Sepia (2000) Retrato en sepia
  
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  City of the Beasts (2002) La ciudad de las bestias
  
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  Kingdom of the Golden Dragon (2004) El reino del dragón de oro
  
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  Zorro (2005) El Zorro: Comienza la leyenda
  
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  Forest of the Pygmies (2005) El bosque de los pigmeos
  
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  Ines of My Soul (2006) Inés del alma mía
  
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  Island Beneath the Sea (2010) La isla bajo el mar
  
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  Maya's Notebook (2011) El Cuaderno de Maya
  
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  Ripper (2014) El juego de Ripper
  
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  The Japanese Lover (2015) El amante japonés
  
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  In the Midst of Winter (2017) Más allá del invierno ISBN 1501178156
  
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  A Long Petal of the Sea (2019) Largo pétalo de mar
  
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  Violeta (2022)
  

Nonfiction Edit

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  Paula (1994) Paula ISBN 0060927216
  
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  Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses (1998) Afrodita
  
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  My Invented Country: A Memoir (2003) Mi país inventado
  
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  The Sum of Our Days (2007) La suma de los días
  
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  The Soul of a Woman (2021) Mujeres del alma mía ISBN 9780593355626