Laura Esqivel

Life before and life after the 1973 military coup-d'йtat in Chile marks the stark divide in Isabel Allende's life. Allende is a world-renowned Latin American writer, known for the passion and folk-tale eloquence with which she shares her country with the world. She uses the power of the word as a tool to express her pain, anger, and love.

Isabelle Allende was born in Lima, Peru on August 2, 1942. Her father, Tomas Allende, was a Chilean ambassador to Peru, and cousin of Salvador Allende, the first democratically elected socialist candidate in the world. Her mother was Francisca Llona, daughter of Isabel Barros Moreira and Augustin Llona Cuevas.

Allende spent her early childhood in Peru and did not see Chile, her homeland, until she was four years old. Her father had abandoned the family and her mother was forced to move back to Chile with her three children. They lived in her maternal grandparents' house in Santiago, Chile. With divorce illegal in Chile at the time, Allende's mother obtained a legal separation only after Allende's grandfather utilized his political status. Allende's mother married a man named Ramуn Huidobro, also a diplomat, but could never legalize the union because of her previous marriage. Much of her childhood was spent in Bolivia and Lebanon.

Not until her teens did Isabel Allende develop her love for Chile. She was sent back to Chile in 1958 when she was 16 because of the civil war that broke out in Beirut and the conflict over the Suez Canal. Upon her return to Chile, she again lived with her maternal grandparents. Her grandfather took Isabel on all of his travels through Chile and greatly expanded her love and knowledge of the country. He influenced her deeply.

In 1962 Allende married Miguel Frias, an engineering student she had met during preparatory school. In her own words, she "served as his geisha." She gave birth to their first child, Paula, in 1963.

Influenced by her grandfather who told her, "The one that pays the bills, rules the house," Allende took a job as a journalist in 1964. "Until very recently, I hadn't trusted men," she says. "I thought they weren't reliable; if you wanted something done, you had to do it yourself - including raising the kids. I never allowed anyone else to pay the bills because I understood that economic independence created the rest; I started working early and I've worked all my life. I never surrendered to a relationship with a man the way I did to my children and my mother." She worked as a journalist for ten years for a women's magazine called Paula, a children's magazine called Mampato, television shows, and movie documentaries. When asked about her work as a journalist she says, "I was a lousy journalist. I had no problem exaggerating or making up quotes. My colleagues thought they were being objective, but I never thought they were and I didn't even pretend."

In 1966 she gave birth to her second child, Nicholas. Allende continued her work as a journalist while raising her children. Four years later, in the year 1970, Salvador Allende, the second cousin and godfather of Isabel, was elected the first socialist president of Chile. Her stepfather, Ramon Huidobro, was appointed ambassador.

During the years of the socialist government, Allende worked for a television station. On Chilean station 13 and 7 she hosted two talk shows, one humorous program and one based on interviews. Her programs were very popular. She was not as politically active as the rest of her family. She did, however, challenge the machismo of Chile during the time: "I'd wanted to be a man since I was five." She was involved in women's issues and feminism but not politics.

In Santiago, Chile, on September 11, 1973, a military coup was led by General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte. President Salvador Allende was assassinated. The military government reported that his death was a suicide. Allende, along with members of her extended family, fled to Venezuela. She suspected that the coup would not last long. "We thought-my husband and I-that I could spend a couple of months away and then return quietly." Allende found, however, that this was not to be. "Once you're on a list then they can get you anytime. So eventually my husband left, too, with the two kids, and we reunited in Venezuela. Never thinking that we would spend 13 years in Venezuela. We always thought that a dictatorship would not last [in] a country that had such a long and strong democratic tradition, so we thought, 'This can't happen.' But it lasted for 17 years."

Allende worked for a number of different newspapers and literary magazines during the 1970's. She got a job as an administrator at Marroco College, a secondary school in Caracas. Then in 1979 she received word that her grandfather was dying. She began to write him a letter. It was this letter that later became La Casa de los Epiritos (House of Spirits). She was 38 years old when she began the literary career for which she is now famous. Allende won best novel of the year from Chile, Germany, and Switzerland for La Casa de los Espiritos.

Allende decisively states that a recurring theme in all of her books is the estranged main protagonist. "I would say that my protagonists and most of my characters are always marginal. Even if they're not exiles in the sense that they have to leave the country. They are exiled from the big umbrella of the establishment. I like people who stand on the edge and therefore are not sheltered. And that is when you have to bring out all the strength that you have inside and if you live sheltered you never use it, because you don't need it. But when you go to a situation that is extreme -- like a war or whatever or when you're a martyr -- then you need all of that strength and you realize that you have this incredible source of energy inside. That it's there when we reach for it."

In 1987 Allende divorced Miguel Frias. In 1988 she married an American, Willie Gordon. She settled down in San Francisco, USA. Allende continues to publish books branching