Books by Isabel Allende
The House of the Spirits
by Isabel Allende
Isabel Allende—the world's most popular living writer working in Spanish—published her famous magical realist novel The House of the Spirits in 1982, and found immediate global acclaim. It began, she has said, as a long letter to her dying grandfather: "He died and never received the letter, because I kept on writing and writing it. By the end of the year, I had more than 500 pages, and that was my first novel, The House of the Spirits." The book is a family saga, unfolding over four generations in an unnamed country that appears very like Chile. In it, the youngest daughter of the del Valle family, Clara, has telekinetic and clairvoyant powers—but she cannot, in the end, save her family from violence and heartbreak. It was adapted as a film starring Meryl Streep in 1993; a new television adaptation is currently being developed for Amazon Prime.
“Isabel Allende is a very successful novelist and one of the great storytellers of the world. The House of the Spirits was her first book. It made her world famous and, still today, I think it’s fundamental to read for anyone who wants to understand Chile and Chilean society. Because even though it’s a novel, it spans several generations of a Chilean family, and so you get a fictionalized version of the history of Chile through their story. Their quirks and foibles as individuals, as humans, are typical of Chilean society even today. So if you read this novel, you have a good foundation in the strangeness or the unique character of Chilean society.” Read more...
Natascha Scott-Stokes, Travel Writer
The Soul of a Woman
by Isabel Allende
A new memoir (she's already written a couple) from Chilean literary legend Isabel Allende. Now close to 80, she remains exuberant about life and a staunch feminist. Isabel Allende's father was the cousin of Salvador Allende, the Chilean president who was overthrown in the military coup of 1973 that brought Augusto Pinochet to power. It would turn into one of the bloodiest episodes in political history, and Allende herself ended up in exile in Venezuela. But it was there that she started writing her first and probably still most famous book, The House of the Spirits.
Interviews where books by Isabel Allende were recommended
The best books on Chile, recommended by Natascha Scott-Stokes
Chile is a country of extremes says travel writer and translator Natascha Scott-Stokes, who has lived there for nearly two decades. She chooses five books that give a good sense of the country, from a novel by one of Chile’s great writers, to the biography of the folk singer who was brutally murdered after the 1973 military coup.
Magical Realism Books, recommended by Five Books interviewees
If you enjoy some fantastical elements in your literature—but you aren’t quite ready for full-on swords and sorcery—then perhaps magical realism books are for you. As a genre, magical realism is often associated with South America, thanks in large part to the ‘father of magical realism’ Gabriel García Márquez and mega-bestselling books by Isabel Allende, but examples can be found from all over the world. We’ve put a list of must-read titles.
