Interview with International Award-Winning & Best-Selling Author Isabel Allende
Photo by Lori Barra
Welcome to Latino Book Review, my name is Rossy Lima. Today we will be speaking with the international, award-winning and best-selling author, Isabel Allende. Isabel Allende is the author of 23 books which have been translated into 42 languages. She has sold over 74 million copies worldwide. She is the recipient of numerous recognitions including 15 international honorary doctorates and more than 60 awards in over 15 countries. Her work has been adapted into 2 international movies, as well as plays, musicals, operas, ballets and radio programs. She is also the Founder of The Isabel Allende Foundation to empower women and girls worldwide.
ROSSY LIMA: Welcome Isabel, it is a great honor for me to be talking to you. [Isabel: Thank you.] Well, you were raised in a conservative Catholic family, but from a very early age you started to defy many of the social norms in your home country and of course the patriarchal system. How were you able to channel your efforts and ideologies through your writing?
ISABEL ALLENDE: Well, I became a journalist very early in my life, in my 20s, and I started working in a feminist-feminine magazine called Paula that really caused a cultural change in Chile because it was the first time that we would publicly discuss or publish about certain issues that were very important for women. So, things like abortion and contraception, marriage, virginity and many other things that were taboo, they were never spoken of. We are talking 1967, and I thought it was easy for me to channel everything that I felt was there in the world and the struggle that I thought was needed through the magazine.
LIMA: So you have mentioned that you were a feminist even before feminism had reached Chile. And you have also pointed out that feminism is still needed today. What would you say to those who feel threatened by the word feminism?
ALLENDE: Well if some women or men feel threatened by the word feminism they can change the word use any other word. Name me something different. But the struggle is needed. I mean, we don't have gender equality in most of the world. In many places, women are still trafficked and treated like cattle, and they have no rights. And when they have rights, they're always threatened.
For example in the United States, reproductive rights are threatened in this moment when we thought that that would never happen, and it's happening. So, it takes very little to take away rights from women. So we need to keep on working on that, on those issues, not only for the people who have them, but mostly for our sisters who do not. And feminism has not reached everywhere and everybody yet. And there's still a lot of work to be done.
LIMA: Yes definitely.
ALLENDE: We can not be complacent about this.
LIMA: Especially seeing what just happened last week in Alabama. Right.
ALLENDE: Yeah, that's one of the many things I mean. But if you look at the world, things that happen in other places are horrifying, horrifying. The situation of reproductive rights in places like El Salvador or Honduras are outrageous. Femicide in Mexico or in Central America is rampant. And it's totally not accountable for, with total impunity. The government does nothing.
LIMA: Yes definitely, I totally agree with you. I'm from Mexico and we do see that precisely that the power of impunity that the government has had for women.
ALLENDE: Yeah, the military, the paramilitary, the government, they act like gangs when it comes to women.
LIMA: You started your career as a novelist in 1982 while you were in exile in Venezuela and then continued it since 1989 in the US. What obstacles did you encounter when you started your career, and how do you think some of these obstacles are different or similar to the ones that are being faced by young female writers today?
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ALLENDE: When I published The House of the Spirits that was published in Spain in 1983, 82 and 83, it was said that I was the first or the only woman of the Boom of Latin American literature. As if women have not been writing. Women had been writing in our continent since Juana Inés de la Cruz. So the thing is that women's voices have been, and especially at the time, systematically ignored and silenced—the reviewers, the critics, the professionals who teach literature, the publishers, the editors, ignored women.
The House of the Spirits hit a chord in, I would say the readership, mostly in Europe. And because it became a best seller, for the first time, publishers were looking for women writers to see what they have to offer. And they became aware that more women than men buy fiction. So there's a market there, that they had not really targeted. And imagine, this happened 35 years ago, and since then, things have changed. There are many many more Latino women writing in Spanish that are published extensively and reviewed and their work is taught in universities. I'm not saying that this is due to The House of the Spirits, not at all. I think that times have changed, and women's voices are more powerful and they cannot be ignored. So in that sense it has changed, but still, there is gender inequality in that as well. Women have to be three times better than any man to get half the recognition—in any field, in science, in sports, and mostly of course in literature. LIMA: Yeah, I completely agree. So, in your works, like for example, Clara del Valle Trueba, Eva Luna, Eliza Summers, Inés Suarez, are endearing characters that portray women through a lens we usually don't see in mainstream media. Why did you choose to separate your female characters from the common stereotypes, to make them strong adventurous, resilient rebels, and how can other writers make this a common practice in their portrayal of women characters? |
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ALLENDE: I cannot give advice to other writers—at all. And I don't do this consciously. I write about people I know, about the people that I'm interested in. I'm not interested, mostly, in people who are protected by the big umbrella of the establishment, people who do not challenge anything, who are not tested by life. There's no story there. So when I write about these characters, I'm not making them up. I can make up the character, but it's always based on some reality on people I know. I have a foundation and the mission of my foundation is empowerment of women and girls. And I get to meet extraordinary women who have gone through hell. They have survived the most awful circumstances. And they not only survive, they also, many of them, become leaders in their community—agents of change. So, those are the people I'm interested in and those are the people you will find in my books.
Now, I think that many women writers, most women writers, write about women like that. It's only, I would say recently, that we are more aware that in male literature there are few strong female characters. In the Latin American Boom of literature, there were certain stereotypes that were present in almost every book—the prostitute, the virginal fiancé, the devil-woman, the lover, the mother, the wife, but they were not really very complex. Mostly because that generation of male authors were brought up very separated from the female world.
I remember when I was growing up. I'm 76 now. So I would be 10 years younger than people like Mario Vargas Llosa, or like, García Márquez is dead, but it's another generation. And all of us were brought up the girls in girls schools, the boys and boys schools. There were sports for boys and sports for girls. In a way, we grew up separated. We knew very little about the other gender. Now, that's not happening anymore. Everything is co-ed, and boys and girls grew up together in the same schools, with the same sports, with the same, in the same environment. So they know much more about each other. Therefore, the female characters written by male authors who are young, are also different, and complex, and full of contradictions, as women really are.
LIMA: Yeah, very interesting perception. You're totally right. The times have changed. So, when I learned about your book, The House of the Spirits. When I learned that it was a farewell letter to your dying grandfather, I began to think about the prevailing theme of absence in other books such as Paula, Inés of My Soul and My Invented Country. After my grandfather passed away I was able to understand better that more than an absence, there is an omnipresent energy embellished by memory. For you, what is the role of memory and imagination when you are creating your novels and memoirs?
ALLENDE: You know, I read once that the process in the mind for imagination and memory are very similar—almost indistinguishable. So what is memory and what is imagination? It's hard to tell where the borderline is, because when we remember something, it is tainted by our feelings and our beliefs, and we transform that into a work of imagination. You know, my granddaughter who is now in her 20s, but when she was 6 or 7 years old she had to write something for her school. The composition was about the family, and she wrote that her family was not interesting. The only interesting person was her grandmother. And the teacher said, "Why your grandmother?" And she said, "Because she has a great imagination." And the teacher said, "What is a great imagination?" And she replied, "My grandmother remembers what never happened."
[Laughs]
And in a way, I think that that summarizes what I'm trying to say, that when I write I think I'm remembering something, but I know that I'm not remembering it exactly as it happened, because if my brother tells the same story where we were together at the same time, he will to tell it differently. Because my perception of something is tainted by my imagination. So when I write fiction—of course fiction in a way is a form of lie because you are making something up, but you don't make it up out of the blue. The raw material for making it up is something that you have experienced, something that you've seen, that you believe in.
My son has a scientific mentality. He's an engineer. He understands the world with facts and numbers. So when he was younger he was always telling me, "Mother, that didn't happen that way. It wasn't like that." And now he doesn't anymore. He now understands that my brain works that way, and he can't help it. I mean I can't help it and he cannot either. That's the way it is.
LIMA: Yes. Well, my mother gifted me your book, Eva Luna in Spanish when I was around 16 years old. I was a lonely immigrant girl struggling to learn English and I was absolutely drawn by Eva Luna's fearlessness, defiance and resilience. But most importantly, with your book, I felt I was able to celebrate my language and to celebrate my identity. So, what do you think is the role of literature by Latin American authors for Latin American immigrant families in the US?
Now, I think that many women writers, most women writers, write about women like that. It's only, I would say recently, that we are more aware that in male literature there are few strong female characters. In the Latin American Boom of literature, there were certain stereotypes that were present in almost every book—the prostitute, the virginal fiancé, the devil-woman, the lover, the mother, the wife, but they were not really very complex. Mostly because that generation of male authors were brought up very separated from the female world.
I remember when I was growing up. I'm 76 now. So I would be 10 years younger than people like Mario Vargas Llosa, or like, García Márquez is dead, but it's another generation. And all of us were brought up the girls in girls schools, the boys and boys schools. There were sports for boys and sports for girls. In a way, we grew up separated. We knew very little about the other gender. Now, that's not happening anymore. Everything is co-ed, and boys and girls grew up together in the same schools, with the same sports, with the same, in the same environment. So they know much more about each other. Therefore, the female characters written by male authors who are young, are also different, and complex, and full of contradictions, as women really are.
LIMA: Yeah, very interesting perception. You're totally right. The times have changed. So, when I learned about your book, The House of the Spirits. When I learned that it was a farewell letter to your dying grandfather, I began to think about the prevailing theme of absence in other books such as Paula, Inés of My Soul and My Invented Country. After my grandfather passed away I was able to understand better that more than an absence, there is an omnipresent energy embellished by memory. For you, what is the role of memory and imagination when you are creating your novels and memoirs?
ALLENDE: You know, I read once that the process in the mind for imagination and memory are very similar—almost indistinguishable. So what is memory and what is imagination? It's hard to tell where the borderline is, because when we remember something, it is tainted by our feelings and our beliefs, and we transform that into a work of imagination. You know, my granddaughter who is now in her 20s, but when she was 6 or 7 years old she had to write something for her school. The composition was about the family, and she wrote that her family was not interesting. The only interesting person was her grandmother. And the teacher said, "Why your grandmother?" And she said, "Because she has a great imagination." And the teacher said, "What is a great imagination?" And she replied, "My grandmother remembers what never happened."
[Laughs]
And in a way, I think that that summarizes what I'm trying to say, that when I write I think I'm remembering something, but I know that I'm not remembering it exactly as it happened, because if my brother tells the same story where we were together at the same time, he will to tell it differently. Because my perception of something is tainted by my imagination. So when I write fiction—of course fiction in a way is a form of lie because you are making something up, but you don't make it up out of the blue. The raw material for making it up is something that you have experienced, something that you've seen, that you believe in.
My son has a scientific mentality. He's an engineer. He understands the world with facts and numbers. So when he was younger he was always telling me, "Mother, that didn't happen that way. It wasn't like that." And now he doesn't anymore. He now understands that my brain works that way, and he can't help it. I mean I can't help it and he cannot either. That's the way it is.
LIMA: Yes. Well, my mother gifted me your book, Eva Luna in Spanish when I was around 16 years old. I was a lonely immigrant girl struggling to learn English and I was absolutely drawn by Eva Luna's fearlessness, defiance and resilience. But most importantly, with your book, I felt I was able to celebrate my language and to celebrate my identity. So, what do you think is the role of literature by Latin American authors for Latin American immigrant families in the US?
Photo by Lori Barra
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ALLENDE: You know when I write I don't think that I'm helping anybody, that I have a role and responsibility. I have a responsibility. My responsibility is to be as honest as possible with my work and not to do damage. For example, I will never write details about torture because I don't want some crazy psychopath to use my book as inspiration of course. So, there are certain things that I don't write about because I feel responsible for that, but I don't have a role. I don't feel that I have a role.
Now, because I have a vast readership. People write to me all the time, and they say, "Well, your book Paula helped me when I was mourning for my mother," or "Your book Inés of My Soul inspired me to become a leader in my community where there's a lot of gang rape," and whatever. But I didn't intend it that way. It just happens. You write something, you write a book, it's published, and it is like putting a message in a bottle and throwing it in the sea. You don't know which shores it will reach or who will pick it up and what effect that message may have on that reader. You don't know that—you can't control it. So I write the best I can, about things I believe are true, or I believe are important. And that's all I can do. |
LIMA: That's wonderful. In 2016 I was moved by an interview with Jorge Ramos, where you called the Latino community in the US to take an active role in politics, especially in terms of voting. Unfortunately, and against the interests of our community, Trump was elected. After three years of this nightmare, how do you see the future of this country?
ALLENDE: Very badly. Unless the country reacts and there is a wave of reaction strong enough to defeat Trump in the next election and move the country back to where it was before—the respect for institutions and for democracy. We are doomed. I mean, very bad things can happen in eight years in a country with a person like Trump in the presidency. I am not very optimistic. I think that unless there is a huge reaction of the young people, of Latinos, of people of color, of women, especially of women, Trump might be reelected.
LIMA: Yes it is, it is a scary situation. So changing the subject to something more pleasant. As readers, we really enjoy the mysticism of your January 8th ritual when you start a new novel because this adds magic, the same magic that we find in your novels and memoirs. So I wanted to ask you, do you have any other rituals you would like to share with us?
ALLENDE: I start my books on January 8th not so much as a ritual but out of discipline. I have a very complicated life because I also have the foundation not only the books. But because the books are published in so many languages, there is always some book being published in some language in this moment, in some place. So I'm always busy about that book, or other books, or the sum of all the books, plus the foundation. And if I don't carve enough time and solitude and silence to write, I would never get anything done. A way of doing that is planning my year accordingly. So if I know, and everybody in my office and in my life knows that on January 8th I start writing and I'm not available, then I can write, because it's planned that way. Of course, at the beginning, it was mostly superstition. I thought it was a lucky day. Now I think it's a lucky day, but also it's a discipline day. So, I can do my work because I have that day to start. Otherwise, I would be procrastinating forever.
LIMA: Definitely. So now that you were mentioning the different translations of your book. What is your relationship with these translations? I mean, some of the languages, of course, you're able to understand them, but what happens when you have a translation to a language that you're not familiar with? How is that relationship with that specific book with you?
ALLENDE: I can read the translation, and I do very careful, the translation into English. And I could read the translation into French which I don't actually. But nothing else. So I have to trust that it's in the publisher's interest to have a good translator, and they will check. There must be an editor that speaks Spanish and can compare the translation to the original. But it's completely out of my hands. I get copies of my books in not only languages that I don't know, I don't even know they existed. Sometimes in a writing that I can't read—in Cyrillic or whatever writing it is—that I don't even know if it's my book. Sometimes because there's a picture of me in the back, I know it's my book, but I don't know which one of the books it is.
LIMA: Yeah, definitely, I mean it has been translated, your work, to 42 languages. So I can really imagine how your office looks filled of books.
ALLENDE: Yeah, if you would see, we have a library for the editions that keep coming, and we keep only very few copies of each edition because they add up, you know. But we have—imagine a double garage, a large garage, with shelves, parallel shelves full of books. That's more or less how it looks.
LIMA: And talking about this relationship with the translations. Also, what is, what is the feeling that you get when you see your works turned, for example, into TV series or into movies?
ALLENDE: It's very interesting because I know that even if I don't like a movie very much, the movie will reach people that will never read the book. So, it is a great honor and it's very convenient to have your work on a screen. My books have been done into movies, now mini-series. I have three mini-series that will come out sometime in the near future. One is Inés of My Soul, a co-production between Spain and Chile, filmed in Chile and in Spain; The House of the Spirits done here in the United States; and the City of the Beasts. Then I have one opera, a ballet that is coming out in September in Chile with the House of the Spirits, plays of the House of the Spirits. So, all those things are important because, first of all, they inspire other creators. So that's really wonderful for me, very flattering. But also from the point of view of getting the story out there. You reach people that would never read.
LIMA: So, for the first time you will talk about the Civil War and the Republican exile in your new novel. What can your readers expect of this new book, Largo pétalo de mar, A Long Petal of the Sea which will be available May 21st in Spain and Latin America and June 4th in the US?
ALLENDE: Very badly. Unless the country reacts and there is a wave of reaction strong enough to defeat Trump in the next election and move the country back to where it was before—the respect for institutions and for democracy. We are doomed. I mean, very bad things can happen in eight years in a country with a person like Trump in the presidency. I am not very optimistic. I think that unless there is a huge reaction of the young people, of Latinos, of people of color, of women, especially of women, Trump might be reelected.
LIMA: Yes it is, it is a scary situation. So changing the subject to something more pleasant. As readers, we really enjoy the mysticism of your January 8th ritual when you start a new novel because this adds magic, the same magic that we find in your novels and memoirs. So I wanted to ask you, do you have any other rituals you would like to share with us?
ALLENDE: I start my books on January 8th not so much as a ritual but out of discipline. I have a very complicated life because I also have the foundation not only the books. But because the books are published in so many languages, there is always some book being published in some language in this moment, in some place. So I'm always busy about that book, or other books, or the sum of all the books, plus the foundation. And if I don't carve enough time and solitude and silence to write, I would never get anything done. A way of doing that is planning my year accordingly. So if I know, and everybody in my office and in my life knows that on January 8th I start writing and I'm not available, then I can write, because it's planned that way. Of course, at the beginning, it was mostly superstition. I thought it was a lucky day. Now I think it's a lucky day, but also it's a discipline day. So, I can do my work because I have that day to start. Otherwise, I would be procrastinating forever.
LIMA: Definitely. So now that you were mentioning the different translations of your book. What is your relationship with these translations? I mean, some of the languages, of course, you're able to understand them, but what happens when you have a translation to a language that you're not familiar with? How is that relationship with that specific book with you?
ALLENDE: I can read the translation, and I do very careful, the translation into English. And I could read the translation into French which I don't actually. But nothing else. So I have to trust that it's in the publisher's interest to have a good translator, and they will check. There must be an editor that speaks Spanish and can compare the translation to the original. But it's completely out of my hands. I get copies of my books in not only languages that I don't know, I don't even know they existed. Sometimes in a writing that I can't read—in Cyrillic or whatever writing it is—that I don't even know if it's my book. Sometimes because there's a picture of me in the back, I know it's my book, but I don't know which one of the books it is.
LIMA: Yeah, definitely, I mean it has been translated, your work, to 42 languages. So I can really imagine how your office looks filled of books.
ALLENDE: Yeah, if you would see, we have a library for the editions that keep coming, and we keep only very few copies of each edition because they add up, you know. But we have—imagine a double garage, a large garage, with shelves, parallel shelves full of books. That's more or less how it looks.
LIMA: And talking about this relationship with the translations. Also, what is, what is the feeling that you get when you see your works turned, for example, into TV series or into movies?
ALLENDE: It's very interesting because I know that even if I don't like a movie very much, the movie will reach people that will never read the book. So, it is a great honor and it's very convenient to have your work on a screen. My books have been done into movies, now mini-series. I have three mini-series that will come out sometime in the near future. One is Inés of My Soul, a co-production between Spain and Chile, filmed in Chile and in Spain; The House of the Spirits done here in the United States; and the City of the Beasts. Then I have one opera, a ballet that is coming out in September in Chile with the House of the Spirits, plays of the House of the Spirits. So, all those things are important because, first of all, they inspire other creators. So that's really wonderful for me, very flattering. But also from the point of view of getting the story out there. You reach people that would never read.
LIMA: So, for the first time you will talk about the Civil War and the Republican exile in your new novel. What can your readers expect of this new book, Largo pétalo de mar, A Long Petal of the Sea which will be available May 21st in Spain and Latin America and June 4th in the US?
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ALLENDE: I don't know what the readers will find in there. Some of the people who have read it say that it's like the House of the Spirits—a long saga that is about, really, a couple that leave Spain after the Civil War and they are refugees in France when they are picked up by Pablo Neruda the Chilean poet that purchased a ship, that was a cargo ship, called the Winnipeg and refurbished it to transport 2000 people that came to Chile as refugees. Those people changed the country. They were fantastic and what they gave to Chile is so valuable that you can't even measure it. Not only them but their descendants. Thousands of people who are descendants of those 2000 that have done lots for Chile, for their arts, for culture, for science, for music, you name it. And some of those people had to go into exile again after the military coup in Chile. And one of those people who left Spain as a refugee, and then had to leave Chile as a refugee, was my friend. So I heard the story from him. Unfortunately, died a week before I could send him the manuscript dedicated to him.
LIMA: Oh wow. This is... so this is definitely one of those stories that will engage the reader not only for the value of the novel but for the story behind it. Ay, muchísimas gracias Isabel. Bueno, fue un placer platicar contigo. Te mando un fuerte abrazo y te deseo lo mejor. ALLENDE: Gracias, un millón de gracias. Ciao. LIMA: That was international award-winning author Isabel Allende. Her new novel, Largo pétalo de mar, will be available in Spanish on May 21st. The English edition, A Long Petal of the Sea, will be available in January 2020. |
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