- Born
- Birth nameIsabel Allende Llona
- Height5′ (1.52 m)
- Isabel Allende is one of today's most important voices of Southern America literature. She was born in Lima, Peru, in 1942, but at the age of 3 she moved to Chile with her mother and two brothers. She spent her childhood there, at her maternal grandparents'home, but she also traveled a lot and lived in different countries, because of the diplomatic career of her step-father. As an adult, she returned to Chile, where she married, had two children and worked as a journalist until 1973. After the military coup of Pinochet she moved to Venezuela and, later, to United States; now she lives in San Rafael, California, with her second husband. Her books are translated in many languages. She writes mostly narrative, but she also wrote short stories for children, humor books, theater plays. Among her books: "The house of the spirits" (adapted into the movie The House of the Spirits (1993)), "Of Love and Shadows" (adapted into the movie Of Love and Shadows (1994)), "Eva Luna", "the Infinite Plain", "Paula" (a book of memories, written during a tragic period, the illness and death of her daughter), and the trilogy of books for young adults, "The City of the Beasts", "Kingdom of the Golden Dragon" and "Forest of the Pygmies", which are in talks to be adapted for the big screen.- IMDb Mini Biography By: May Ell
- Her father was a Chilean diplomat. Since the parents soon divorced, the child initially grew up with his mother in Santiago de Chile. Allende's mother remarried to a diplomat, so the daughter went to school in Latin American, European and Arab capitals. In 1957, Allende returned to Santiago, where she attended a private school. After attending school, Allende joined the UN office in Chile as a secretary. After this job, she turned to journalism to work for print media and television. Through her journalistic work, Allende campaigned primarily for the emancipation of women and gender equality. In 1967 she founded the women's magazine "Paula" with other women's rights activists. At the same time, she worked for the magazine "Mampato" from 1969 to 1974 and for the film magazine "Maga-Cine-Ellas" in 1973. In "Paula" the young journalist also wrote for the left-wing Popular Front government of her uncle Salvator Allende.
A traumatic experience for Allende was the murder or forced suicide of the democratically elected Popular Front president in September 1973: her uncle was a victim of the military coup that brought the dictator Augusto Pinochet to power. After Pinochet was made president in 1974, Allende and his family went into exile in Caracas. From 1976 to 1983 she worked as a freelancer for the daily newspaper "El Nacional" in the Venezuelan capital. She also worked as a school principal. At the same time, Allende intensified her literary work, which she had already begun in her Chilean youth. In 1982 she made her successful literary debut with the novel "La casa de los espíritus" ("The Haunted House", 1984). Here she worked through the past of her Chilean homeland up to the fall of her uncle. Allende's first successful novel was placed on international bestseller lists.
In 1993 it was made into a film by Bille August. Other highlights in Allende's literary work were the 1984 novel "Tiempo de amor y de sombra" ("Of Love and Shadows", 1986). After moving to California, she published her third successful novel, "Eva Luna," in 1988. In the same year, Allende married his second wife, the American lawyer William Gordon. She brought her daughter Paula and son Nicolás into the marriage, who came from a previous relationship. Allende became a worldwide literary mediator of Latin American history, culture and politics. In doing so, she also claimed to raise her voice on behalf of those who were condemned to silence under the Pinochet regime in Chile. The writer dealt with her own tragic family fate in the 1995 autobiographical book "Paula", which dealt with the illness-related death of her daughter of the same name, who died in 1992. Allende published further publications in 1998 with "Afrodita" ("Aphrodite"), in 2001 with "Retrato en Sepia" ("Portrait in Sepia") and in 2002 with "La Ciudad de las Bestias" ("The City of the Wild Gods").
The latter book opened the trilogy "The Adventures of Aguila and Jaguar", which was continued in 2003 with the exciting adventure and young adult book "El Reino del Drágon de Oro" ("In the Kingdom of the Golden Dragon") and in 2004 with "El Bosque de los Pigmeos" ("The Spell of the Masks") was completed. Allende won numerous literary prizes. In 1983 she was awarded the Panorama Literario by the Chilean side. In 1986 she was named Author of the Year and in 1998 she received the Dorothy and Jillian Gish Prize. In 2003 she became a US citizen. On the occasion of the 200th birthday of the Danish poet Hans Christian Andersen in 2005, Isabel Allende was appointed fairy tale ambassador and is intended to promote the ABC Foundation's work against illiteracy. Allende published her novel "Zorro" in 2005, in which she continued the hero myth in a new version. In 2009 and 2010 she published the titles "The Island Under the Sea" and "A Discrete Miracle".- IMDb Mini Biography By: Christian_Wolfgang_Barth
- SpousesWillie Gordon(July 17, 1988 - 2015) (divorced)Miguel Frías(1962 - 1987) (divorced, 2 children)
- Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama 24 November 2014.
- First cousin once removed of the former Chilean president Salvador Allende. Her father Tomás Allende was first cousin of Salvador Allende.
- Gave birth to her daughter Paula in 1963 and her son Nicolás Frias in 1966.
- Sister of Dr. Juan Allende, an associate professor of Political Science at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia and Francisco Allende Llona.
- Born to Tomás Allende, a diplomatic official, and his wife Francisca Llona Barros, she grew up at her maternal grandparents' home after her parents had divorced in 1945.
- 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.
- Erotica is using a feather, pornography is using the whole chicken.
- [on being 70] For a vain woman like myself, it's very hard to age in this culture. I feel charming, seductive, sexy. Nobody sees that. I'm invisible. I hate to be invisible.
- My erotic Antonio Banderas fantasy: place him naked in a tortilla, slather him with guacamole and eat him.
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