Isabel Allende
1998 Recipient
Chilean author, Isabel Allende won worldwide acclaim when her bestselling first novel, The House of the Spirits, was published in 1982. In addition to launching Allende’s career as a renowned author, the book also established her as a feminist force in Latin America’s male-dominated literary world.
She has since written nearly 20 more works, including Of Love and Shadows, Eva Luna, Stories of Eva Luna, The Infinite Plan, Daughter of Fortune, Portrait in Sepia, a trilogy for young readers (City of Beasts, Kingdom of the Golden Dragon, and Forest of Pygmies), Zorro, Ines of My Soul, Island Beneath the Sea, Maya’s Notebook, Ripper and her latest book, The Japanese Lover. Nonfiction books include Aphrodite, a humorous collection of recipes and essays, and three memoirs: My Invented Country, Paula (a bestseller that documents Allende’s daughter’s illness and death, as well as her own life), and The Sum of Our Days.
Allende’s books, all written in her native Spanish, have been translated into more than 35 languages and have sold more than 65 million copies. She describes her fiction as “realistic literature,” rooted in her remarkable upbringing and the mystical people and events that fueled her imagination. Her writings are equally informed by her feminist convictions, her commitment to social justice, and the harsh political realities that shaped her destiny.
In addition to her work as a writer, Allende also devotes much of her time to human rights. Following the death of her daughter in 1992, she established, in Paula’s honor, a charitable foundation dedicated to the protection and empowerment of women and children worldwide.
Allende has received fifty awards in over 15 countries over the last 30 years including, Chile’s National Literature Prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
