Books by Isabel Allende
“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.
