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Isabel
Allende
by
Marianne Rogoff, 1995
I come from a very strange family…You don’t need to invent anything.
It’s given to you.*
This
is the beginning of Isabel Allende’s biography:
the “strange” family she is born into and her belief that all this
will make a great story if she can only write fast enough.
Born in Lima, Peru, in 1942 and raised in Chile, Isabel as a little girl
could be heard inventing stories for her younger brothers, Francisco and Juan.
They were “…horrible…long stories that filled their heads with bad dreams
at night and with unexplainable fears during the day.”
Her
father left the family when she was so small that she “has no memories of
him”. Isabel and her mother and
brothers moved into the house of her grandparents.
Her grandmother was a woman who understood telepathy (she was said to be
able to see matters beyond the range of the ordinary), and who conducted séances
(meetings to receive communication from spirits) in the living room on
Thursdays. The young Isabel
listened in and says, “There was nothing spooky about it.
It was just a part of life. It
was taken in a very natural way.” Her
grandfather, a practical man, “never believed in any of it, because
grandmother couldn’t prove it. It
was not scientific.
Her
interesting family and the wild landscape of Chile, the beliefs of her family
and other Chileans about the world of the spirits, about women’s role in
society, political changes, and the rich details of her inner and outer worlds
are all brought to imaginative and vivid life in Allende’s writing.
To understand any writer’s life and how she thinks, the best place to
go is usually her books.
“For
me, the impulse to start a book comes from a great emotion that has been in my
heart for a long time.” Allende’s first novel, The House of the Spirits
(1982) was an attempt ton the author’s part to save the past, to gather loved
ones together, and bring the dead back to life.
In writing it, Allende says, “I wanted to recover all that I had lost,
my land, my family, my memories and the memories of those who were no longer
with me.”
In September 1973, a military takeover
resulted in the assassination of Isabel’s uncle, President Salvador Allende.
Watching the country she loved being ruined by military dictators was
unbearable. Isabel, her
then-husband, and two children were forced to flee to Venezuela.
She remained there for thirteen years.
Isabel
Allende had been a journalist in Chile, and had worked for a women’s magazine,
a children’s magazine, and for several television shows.
“My love for words induced me to work as a journalist since I was
seventeen, but my imagination was a great handicap. I could never be objective,
I exaggerated and twisted reality.
I would put myself in the middle of every feature.
At that time, I also wrote humor articles, short stories for children and
theater plays…Deep in my heart I wanted to become a fictional writer, by was
too busy coping with my children, a husband, a house and a very demanding
job.”
The accomplishments of women always have to
be looked at in this light. How
much they have to overcome in order to accomplish anything at all: the long history of prejudice against women competing with
men for power outside the home, the daily chores of domestic life, raising
children if you have them, political and financial realities. Allende says her most difficult obstacles growing up were low
self-esteem and the rigid cultural and social structures of society (Chile in
the 1950s and 1960s). “Fortunately,
I was very rebellious and never complied. I
became a feminist at an early age. Since
childhood, I have been aware of inequalities and injustice in society and that
awareness gave me the force to fight for the changes I wanted.
Much later, writing helped me overcome my low self-esteem.”
Yet
it was raising her children, the fact that they needed her, were dependent on
her, that kept Isabel from falling into depression while she lived in exile from
her country. “The worst year of my life was probably 1978…In 1978, I
gave up. I wanted to die…I had
lost my job, my country…I had lost my love too, because I didn’t love my
husband anymore. I felt terribly
lonely. I felt that the only thing
that really tied me to this world was the kids…so I postponed my suicidal
ideas or anything about my own life – happiness, love, marriage, everything
– until I finished raising both my kids.
That was wonderful because it saved me from myself, from despair.”
To
keep her memories of her family and country from disappearing altogether, in
1981, Isabel began writing a series of letters to her grandfather as he
approached the age of 100. This writing turned into Allende’s The House of the
Spirits, a book that has been widely acclaimed and became an international
bestseller. In 1994, the
novel was made into a major motion picture, starring Jeremy Irons and Meryl
Streep. The clairvoyant main
character, Clara, is based on Allende’s spirited grandmother:
“My grandmother was just like her.
Or maybe she wasn’t and I have made up everything!”
Full of patriotic men with a mission, passionate women, and ghosts, the
story goes beyond a single generation’s story and spans the history of a
country and a family.
Allende’s
writing style is called “magic realism”, a quality in much literature from
South America that captures the magic that exists in everyday reality.
Chile’s lush landscape, tropical weather, the deeply held religious
beliefs of its people, and turbulent history is the perfect setting for the
author to tell her magical stories. Isabel
turned to the novel to reveal the “truth” because “often a story contains
more truth than official history. My
job is to find that truth and reflect it in my writing.
That is the greatest joy of this weird craft…”
All
over the world her stories are read and then everyone knows what life is like
for the victims. In this way,
empathy is built and action might be taken.
“My second novel, Love and Shadows, was written in fury and pain…The
inspiration came from those hundreds of men, women and children that are
murdered, imprisoned, and tortured and then ‘disappear” in my continent,
victims of political repression.”
Allende
believes that the author has a responsibility to speak for those who have no
voice, who don’t have access to the audiences that she inspires.
Allende speaks before crowds; she has been widely honored all over the
United States, including honorary Doctor of Letters degrees from Dominican
College (1994) and New York University (1991).
She has lectured in Europe. Latin America, and the United States.
She has taught literature at the University of Virginia, Monclair College
and the University of California at Berkeley. Through her writing, teaching, and speeches, Isabel Allende
has advocated for the rights of the oppressed, not only those from Latin
America, but for needy and silenced people from all corners of the world.
After
her uncle was killed in Chile and the dictator Pinochet took power, Isabel
Allende took many risks helping people escape who were marked for torture and
death. By helping the persecuted,
Isabel angered the new government. She
and her family were forced to leave the country.
In drawing clear pictures in her books and speeches about the evils of
dictatorships, she has given the world a better understanding of the importance
of freedom. The written word is one
of the most powerful ways to bring about social change, especially when it
reaches a large audience. Allende’s
writings have been translated into more than 27 languages and have been read by
millions.
She
has been a lifelong advocate for the rights of women and children.
Isabel has made numerous financial contributions to organizations that
protect women and children from racism and violence and to innovative programs
that help perpetrators of domestic violence learn alternative ways to handle
their anger.
As
a woman from a place where, for centuries, literature and power were considered
the sole territory of men, Isabel Allende is a strong role model for women.
Allende’s heroines are daring and inspiring pioneers who have suffered
much and conquered problems in their own way.
Through her writing, we see realistic examples of how to be strong and
take that first step toward self-empowerment.
Her advice for young girls of today who have goals for themselves? “Put a knife in your teeth and don’t let anyone stand in
your way.”
What
brought Isabel Allende to live in Marin? She
answers, “Love!” Her husband is
an attorney in Sausalito and is “very American” while Allende no longer
lives in the country she used to think of as home.
Because she was willing to let love lead the way, she arrived here in
Marin County. “Willie saved me
from myself, and from all the threats of the past.
He gave me a country, roots, a home. Many
things I didn’t have. I had been
drifting for a long time…We are two absolutely different people who come from
different backgrounds, different cultures, race, language, everything…Yet we
won’t part. I hope that nothing
will ever separate us.” Making
love is listed as one of Isabel’s hobbies along with spoiling her
grandchildren, telling stories, directing small theater plays, going to the
movie and enjoying nature.
Yet, her 1995 book, Paula, is a sad reminder
in the midst of all her happiness and abundance that tragedy can be random and
blind. In the book, Allende speaks
to her grown daughter who has fallen ill and lapsed into a long coma.
(Her daughter has since died.) The
voice in the story tells the daughter everything she needs to remember about her
family, her long history, and introduces her to the members of her spirit world. In typical Allende fashion, the author spins a magical cocoon
around the world she creates, and the reader enters and has no choice but to
surrender to its trance-like atmosphere. Her
writing makes you understand that even dying can be beautiful at the same time
as it is tragic, full of laughter along with tears, because such tragedies are
familiar, part of living in a family, common to all of us.
Allende’s
books have received numerous awards including: Best Novel of the Year (Panorama
Literario, Chile); Book of the Year (Germany, 1984); Grand Prix d’Evasion
(France, 1984); Grand Prix de la Radio Television Belge (Belgium, 1985); Freedom
to Write (Pen Club, USA 1991), and many others.
Clearly her work is reaching many shores and landing on many responsive
ears. The power of her womanly pen is mighty, and proves that
toughness can be combined with gentleness and compassion, spirituality with
independence and grounding in reality, femininity with fierce convictions.
“I
feel that I am a very privileged person and therefore I have an obligation to
help those who are in need, especially women and children.
I want the world in general and this community in particular to be a
safer and happier place for women and children.
In order to achieve that, all those in my position have to get
involved.”
Note:
Many quotes here were taken from an interview with Isabel Allende
published in the book, Writers Dreaming by Naomi Epel – New York: Vintage
Books, 1993.
Isabel
Allende: Writing
Allende sets her writing schedule to begin every year on January 8th,
the special date she sets down to see what story she is about to tell.
She listens for voices, from her dreams and memories, from ghostly visits
with departed family members, from herself.
She trusts these spirit guides to lead her.
“The
story starts unfolding itself, slowly, in a long process.” Until she finishes
the first draft, the author does not know what it is about.
Voices outside of her know, and she has only to listen and record.
During this time, when she is setting about to hear the story, she has no
social life, she doesn’t travel – she stays at home and works.
“Everything that distracts me from the world of the book annoys me, and
bores me terribly…” Unless
there is something from the real world to steal and bring back with her to put
in the book, she has no interest in it. She
watches movies during this time looking for “a sentence, an expression, a
color, a little incident that I can transform or somehow use.”
Otherwise, the writer writes.
Across
cultures, languages, class lines, and races, we are dazzled by her artistry, the
tales she tells, the web she weaves. “You
write a book and it is like putting a message in a bottle and throwing it in the
ocean. You don’t know if it will reach any shore.”
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