Isabel Allende with Michael Silverblatt, 24 September 2008 – Audio

Recorded at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico on September 24, 2008.

Isabel Allende was born in Peru and raised in Chile. Her acclaimed first novel, The House of Spirits, was called “Nothing short of astonishing,” by the San Francisco Chronicle. She is the author of eight novels, most recently Inés of My Soul, mapping the early years of the conquest of the Americas through the experiences of Inés Suárez, a seamstress condemned to a life of toil, who flees Spain to seek adventure in the New World. Allende has also written a collection of stories, four memoirs, and a trilogy of children’s novels. Her most recent memoir, The Sum of Our Days, recalls the last 13 years of family life in the wake of her daughter’s tragic death.

Allende uses feminist terms to describe her history of the California Gold Rush. Her writing has always been a stand against patriarchy, her characters the people marginalized by American history: women, Hispanics, Native Americans and Asians.