Isabel Allende: "My grandfather was horrified to see some of his blood speak of abortion, infidelity, drugs"



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  Isabel Allende

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Born in Chile, Isabel Allende has lived in the United States for decades.

Isabel Allende is one of the most important writers of Latin America. and Eva Luna – have sold more than 70 million copies worldwide and have been translated into English. Paula and Eva Luna – she is sold to more than 70 million copies in the world.

  • A list of 100 influential and inspiring women from all over the world selected by the BBC
  • In this interview with the BBC at her house in California In the United States, Allende talks about her life, full of twists and surprises, the untimely death of his daughter Paula and feminism.

    She also spoke of the responsibility she believed to have in front of her readers, as she is one of the most acclaimed writers in Spanish literature. Below are the main excerpt from the conversation:

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    BBC News World – In Your Memoir, My Country Invented You Say Chile Was "a hypocritical country", "full of scruples about bad and sensuality." A person as pbadionate as you feel like something of an immobilizer?

    Isabel Allende – Totally. It was terrible in Chile. In addition, I belong to a very conservative and Catholic family, so it was also in my context.

    From the beginning, I could see the disadvantage of being a woman and I still am. Getty Images

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    "Beyond the Winter" is Isabel Allende's most recent book

    BBC News World – You worked on the magazine Paula that hit Chile like a hurricane. There, they wrote about taboos, female baduality. What was there in the publication so extraordinary for the Chileans? There were many things that people did not talk about and did not publish.

    We were young journalists who had read women's books from the United Kingdom, the United States … we were full of ideas.

    We do not care about anything.

    We started publishing articles and interviews on topics unknown to Chile, such as abortion, infidelity, adultery, prostitution, drugs; things that were taboo

    My grandfather was totally horrified. – But the military coup then split his family (the writer was the niece of Salvador Allende, president fallen by the blow).

    BBC News World – The coup of the military state then divided his family. Isabel Allende – All divided. Everywhere Not only my family. I think all the families in Chile had a person who was repressed.

    Separated families, couples. I went to Venezuela because it was the first time I was in Venezuela.

    I left because I fell in love with an American and I arrived here before democracy in the United States.

    I left because I fell in love with an American and I came here. Allende said that he did not regret not having returned to Chile after the end of the dictatorship

    Casey Mitchell

    entitled Legend of the Image

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    BBC News World – You regret not having returned to Chile? Isabel Allende – I do not regret anything because the most important events of my life unfolded in spite of myself. They were not under my control: the fact that my father was gone, that I lived with my grandfather, that I was a stranger, a political refugee, that I became an immigrant … All these things have arrived, decided by fate, karma, or who knows what. I have just lived what life has offered me.

    BBC News World – You say that literature has helped you break a chain of hatred in your soul.

    Isabel Allende – ] When you are forced to leave a place, when you leave everything behind, when you feel that all that is loved and familiar is lost, you feel grudge, you feel that you owe something, that something has been stolen from you.

    But I completely overcame those feelings through writing.

    BBC News World – Your books have been translated into 42 languages ​​but you still write in Spanish.

    Isabel Allende – Yes, I write a fiction in Spanish. The fiction happens here (showing the belly), it does not happen in the brain.

    I could not therefore deal with fiction in English, with dictionaries.

    Lori Barra

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    The author says that after the death of her daughter, she went through a "long and dark" winter.

    BBC News World – We Talk About The House of Spirits which started as a letter to your grandfather. What did you want to tell him? Isabel Allende – I remember everything that he said to me. He told me a lot of stories and I did not want him to think that they were lost. I have them all with me.

    BBC News World – He died almost 100 years ago, which corresponds to the natural order of things. But the loss of his daughter Paula (a victim of a rare blood disease in 1992), which was so unexpected … My mother said: "Something comparable will never happen to you you lived a hell, so the rest of your life will be easy. "

    She was absolutely right.

    Now that she is no longer there, I continue to write her letters, thinking that there is wireless internet access in the world to come (laughs), and I read his letters one a day, because I do not want to go crazy. Getty Images

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    Obama awarded Allende the Medal of Freedom, the largest US civilian award, in 2014

    BBC News World – There is no woman as acclaimed in Spanish literature as you. Do you think that generates some responsibility? Isabel Allende – No more than with the first book. I have the responsibility to write in the best possible way and not to write anything that can give ideas to a psychopath.

    I know a lot about torture, rape. Teho a foundation, I see the cases.

    But when I talk about love, about bad, about things that I think people should know about and appreciate, I'm more explicit

    I have responsibility Isabel Allende – I am not a person, I am not a person, I am not a person, I am not a religious person But I believe that there is much more than what we can see.

    I do not feel disconnected from my mother and Paula, I feel connected to any form now.

    This interview is part of the project BBC 100 Women which lists 100 inspiring women and is organized annually by the BBC.

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