Isabelle Allende

Life before and life after the 1973 military coup-d'état in Chile marks the stark divide in Isabel Allende's life. Allende is a world-renowned Latin American writer, known for the passion and folk-tale eloquence with which she shares her country with the world. She uses the power of the word as a tool to express her pain, anger, and love.

Isabelle Allende was born in Lima, Peru on August 2, 1942. Her father, Tomas Allende, was a Chilean ambassador to Peru, and cousin of Salvador Allende, the first democratically elected socialist candidate in the world. Her mother was Francisca Llona, daughter of Isabel Barros Moreira and Augustin Llona Cuevas.

Allende spent her early childhood in Peru and did not see Chile, her homeland, until she was four years old. Her father had abandoned the family and her mother was forced to move back to Chile with her three children. They lived in her maternal grandparents' house in Santiago, Chile. With divorce illegal in Chile at the time, Allende's mother obtained a legal separation only after Allende's grandfather utilized his political status. Allende's mother married a man named Ramón Huidobro, also a diplomat, but could never legalize the union because of her previous marriage. Much of her childhood was spent in Bolivia and Lebanon.

Not until her teens did Isabel Allende develop her love for Chile. She was sent back to Chile in 1958 when she was 16 because of the civil war that broke out in Beirut and the conflict over the Suez Canal. Upon her return to Chile, she again lived with her maternal grandparents. Her grandfather took Isabel on all of his travels through Chile and greatly expanded her love and knowledge of the country. He influenced her deeply.

In 1962 Allende married Miguel Frias, an engineering student she had met during preparatory school. In her own words, she "served as his geisha." She gave birth to their first child, Paula, in 1963.

Influenced by her grandfather who told her, "The one that pays the bills, rules the house," Allende took a job as a journalist in 1964. "Until very recently, I hadn't trusted men," she says. "I thought they weren't reliable; if you wanted something done, you had to do it yourself - including raising the kids. I never allowed anyone else to pay the bills because I understood that economic independence created the rest; I started working early and I've worked all my life.