With her first novel, The House of the Spirits (1982), Chilean author Isabel Allende made for herself a name in Latin-American as well as in world literature. Her unique blend of magical realism, following in the footpath opened by other Latin American writers such as Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez, made her into of the most interesting female voices in the Latin American literary panorama.

Born in 1942 in Lima, Peru, where her father held a diplomatic post, she moved to Chile at age three when her family was abandoned by her father just a few days after the birth of her youngest brother. Living at her grandfather’s impressive mansion in Santiago de Chile, the capital city of the country, proved to be a hi

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First published 17 December 2007

Citation: GÓMEZ-GALISTEO, M. CARMEN. "Isabel Allende". The Literary Encyclopedia. 17 December 2007.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5420, accessed 21 November 2009.]