Isabel Allende was born on August 2, 1942. Allende is a Chilean-American novelist who began writing fiction relatively late in life. Her early work often focuses on mid-20th-century political turmoil in Chile and other South American countries. More recently, she has set many of her novels further back in history.

Allende’s father was a Chilean diplomat, and the family was stationed in Peru at the time of her birth. Her parents divorced when Allende was three, and she went with her mother, who returned to Chile. A few year’s later, Allende’s mother married another diplomat, and the family moved frequently. Allende was educated in private English and American schools in Bolivia and Lebanon. The family returned to Chile in 1958.

Allende finished her college education in 1962, and spent several years working for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. For a short time, she also translated romance novels from English to Spanish, but was fired for her habit of re-writing the dialogue and the endings to make the heroines smarter and more independent. In the early 1970s, Allende was the editor of a popular Chilean children’s magazine, and also worked in television production.

Chilean politics became important in Allende’s life in 1970, when Salvador Allende—her father’s cousin—became president; he appointed her stepfather as the new ambassador to Argentina. In 1973, President Allende was overthrown in a military coup by Augusto Pinochet. Isabel began helping to arrange passage out of Chile for people on the wrong side of the political divide, who had found themselves on Pinochet’s “wanted lists.” As relatives of the former president, Allende and her family became targets themselves. Her mother and stepfather were nearly assassinated, and she was eventually placed on the wanted lists. She fled to Argentina in 1974.

In 1981, Allende learned that her 99-year-old grandfather was near death, and she began to write him a long letter. That letter eventually transformed into her first novel, The House of the Spirits (e-book | e-audio | print). It’s a family saga, following the Trueba family through four generations. Allende never explicitly names the setting for the novel, though it is clearly set against the backdrop of postcolonial political turmoil in Chile; some of the more recognizable public figures are identified only as “the President” or “the Poet.”

The House of the Spirits was a best-seller throughout Latin America, and when it was translated into English in 1985, it was just as well-received. A 1993 film adaptation was only a mild success, both commercially and successfully, in part because of its casting; even 25 years ago, casting Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, and Jeremy Irons as the central members of a Chilean family seemed rather inappropriate.

Allende’s writing was influenced both by the Latin American writers who had become popular in the 1960s and 1970s, and by commercial American fiction. As a New York Times critic asked when reviewing her 1987 novel Eva Luna (e-book | e-audio | print), “Is this magic realism à la Garcia Márquez or Hollywood magic à la Judith Krantz?”

Since taking up fiction, Allende has kept to a strict work schedule. She is at the computer from 9 to 7 each day, six days a week. She always starts each new book on January 8, the date that she began writing that letter to her grandfather.

Allende moved to the United States in 1988, when she married her second husband, and became a United States citizen in 1993. Her 1991 novel The Infinite Plan (e-book | print) was her first to be set primarily outside South America, and her first to feature a male central character; it follows a man from childhood in the 1950s through the Vietnam War.

In 1991, Allende’s 28-year-old daughter Paula was given an incorrect dose of medicine for a chronic medical problem; as a result, Paula was in a coma for more than a year before dying in late 1992. Allende wrote about that experience in her memoir Paula (e-book | print). She has written two other volumes of memoirs; My Invented Country (e-book | print | audio) focuses on Chile after Pinochet’s coup, and The Sum of Our Days (e-book | print) deals with her life since Paula’s death, written in the form of letters to Paula.

Allende shifted fictional gears in 2002, with City of the Beasts (e-book | print), the first volume in a trilogy for young adults, written at the request of her grandchildren.

Since finishing that trilogy, many of Allende’s novels have been historical fiction. Inés of My Soul (e-book | print | audio) is set in the 16th century, at the time that the Spanish first settled in Chile; Island Beneath the Sea (e-book | e-audio | print) takes place during the Haitian slave rebellion of the late 18th century; and The Japanese Lover (e-book | e-audio | print | audio) is a historical epic about a Polish refugee in San Francisco during World War II and her romance with a young Japanese-American man.

Allende’s most recent novel, In the Midst of Winter (e-book | e-audio | print | audio), centers on the relationship between a middle-aged college professor and a young undocumented Guatemalan immigrant.

Also This Week

August 1, 1779

Francis Scott Key was born. Key is best remembered as the author of the poem which became “The Star-Spangled Banner,” later adopted as the national anthem of the United States. In the 1830s, Key served as the district attorney for Washington, D.C. Jefferson Morley’s Snow-Storm in August (e-book | print) is the story of one of his most controversial prosecutions, in which a well-known socialite asked President Andrew Jackson to help free from prison one of her slaves, who had been charged with her attempted murder.

July 30, 1939

Peter Bogdanovich was born. Bogdanovich is a director, film historian, and occasional actor. His directing career has been varied, covering a wide range of genres—screwball comedy, thriller, musical, documentary, costume drama. Among his most popular films is the 1973 comic drama Paper Moon (streaming | DVD), starring father and daughter Ryan and Tatum O’Neal as Depression-era con artists.

July 29, 1958

President Dwight Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). NASA was specifically created as a non-military organization, dedicated to peaceful exploration of space and application of space science. In the history of space flight, it has understandably been the astronauts who get most of the attention. In Go, Flight! (e-book), Rick Houston and Milt Heflin turn their attention to some of the behind-the-scenes heroes, the men and women who work in Mission Control.

July 30, 1975

Jimmy Hoffa disappeared from the parking lot of a Detroit restaurant, and was never seen again. Hoffa was a union leader, the former president of the Teamsters, with ties to organized crime. Hoffa was declared legally dead in 1982, and speculation continues to this day about what actually happened to him. In I Heard You Paint Houses (e-book | e-audio | print), Charles Brandt reports on the claims of hitman Frank Sheeran to be Hoffa’s killer; the book is the basis for the Martin Scorsese film The Irishman, due to be released later this year.